16 Discussion 



likely that the ovary may produce some androgenic compound; and 

 indeed all the females of the mole are more or less masculinized. That 

 is a special case. 



Parkes: Prof. Jost, are you referring to the adult or the embryo in 

 these moles? 



Jost: Both. The mole embryo was studied by Godet (1949). He ob- 

 served that the female foetus in the mole normally exhibits signs of 

 masculinization such as a prostate. When oestrogens are injected into 

 the pregnant mother, the female foetus becomes more like the normal 

 female in other species: for instance, the prostate fails to appear, and 

 the Wolffian ducts disappear more rapidly. Under normal conditions the 

 new born female mole to a certain extent resembles an experimentally 

 masculinized female of the rat, for instance. 



Parkes: That is why I asked whether you were referring to the adult 

 or the foetus. 



Jost: It was done on the foetus. 



Parkes: I imagine it can be taken as read that the adult ovary pro- 

 duces a certain amount of androgen, but I have never been convinced 

 that the adult mole shows any real signs of masculinization, apart from 

 the queer changes in the anoestrous ovary. 



Jost: Some signs of masculinization were also reported by Godet in 

 the adult mole at the level of the balano-preputial fold, which undergoes 

 a seasonal cycle, 



Parkes: You mean masculinization appears when the ovary has gone 

 back to normal? 



Amoroso: I think it should be emphasized that the morphological 

 changes in the reproductive organs of the mole are so notoriously 

 different from the comparable events in the rat that the greatest caution 

 should be exercised when making comparisons between the two species. 



But apart from this I would like to ask Dr. Price whether in fact the 

 Wolffian ducts may not themselves exert a profound influence on the 

 development of the Mullerian ducts. It is known, for example, that in 

 elasmobranch fishes the Mullerian ducts arise by longitudinal splitting 

 of the Wolffian ducts and in mammals there is good supporting evidence 

 that the Wolffian ducts and /or Wolffian tubules contribute elements to 

 the growing tips of the Mullerian ducts. 



Price: Yes, I think there is a real point here. Gruenwald (1941) offers 

 evidence for the chick and the human that the Wolffian duct may con- 

 tribute cells to the Mullerian duct or alternatively that the Mullerian 

 duct may split from the Wolffian duct. 



In some of our explants we observed that the posterior end of a 

 Mullerian duct entered the sheath of its associated Wolffian duct and 

 in a few cases a Mullerian duct actually joined a Wolffian duct. In the 

 foetus the Mullerian ducts have not yet reached the urogenital sinus at 

 15^ days. In a few of the cultured tracts that were explanted at that 

 age the ducts continued their growth to the sinus and joined it but 

 growth was less marked in other explants. It is true that some of the 

 variability may be attributable to morphological or physiological changes 

 in the Wolffian ducts in culture. 



