104 INTERNAL SECRETIONS 



and even practical understanding, would be wholly impossible 

 if such a proceeding were not adopted. What we mean when 

 we state that an internal secretion of the sex glands causes male 

 or female characters, is, in the first instance, merely that male 

 or female sex characters can develop only when in an otherwise 

 healthy organism and ceteris paribus the internal secretion of 

 the testicle or the ovary is produced. It is the same with all 

 the other functions attributed to the different structures or 

 organs. Take, for instance, the cortex of the cerebral hemi- 

 spheres considered as an organ of intelligence. Nobody 

 presumably will doubt that the cortex really has this function. 

 But the accomplishment of this function depends upon manifold 

 factors: upon the heart, the blood vessels, and the stimuli 

 acting on the organs of sense. Nevertheless, everyone will 

 agree that great confusion would aiise in physiology if a man of 

 science put forward the view that the cerebral cortex was 

 not responsible for the intelligence merely because the other 

 living organs and tissues were involved in giving effect to 

 intelligent action. And similarly with the sexual gland. 



Complete maleness or femaleness does not occur without the 

 hypophysis, the adrenals, the thyroid, and so on. In such an 

 objection the second error manifests itself. Extirpation or 

 destruction by disease of any one of these endocrine glands wiU 

 cause a pathological condition which is incurable except by 

 the transplantation of the gland or by feeding or injecting 

 its extract. The position after castration (or in cases of true 

 genital eunuchoidism) is different; no pathological condition 

 arises. It is true that the organism becomes altered function- 

 ally and structurally, but there are no disturbances of a patho- 

 logical order if the other endocrine glands or organs were in a 

 healthy state before. The ovary and the testicle have a specific 

 sexual effect; ceteris paribus femaleness depends upon the 

 ovary, maleness upon the testicle. This sex specific action of 

 the gonads through their internal secretions is a characteristic 

 feature of these glands. It will be dealt with later in this book. 



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