i66 INTERNAL SECRETIONS 



increased specific effect, as, for instance, a greater sexual 

 activity during heat. It may also be that this increased effect 

 will last a considerable time, as in Steinach's transplantation 

 experiments, and those of Lacassagne and Sand with ligature of 

 the vas, referred to above. But this is very different from 

 supposing that with an increased quantity of hormone there 

 will be always and necessarily an increased specific hormonic 

 effect. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that the 

 result of an increased hormonic influence depends, not only 

 upon the actual hormones and the quantity present, but also 

 upon the substratum affected thereby. Take for instance the 

 psycho-sexual behaviour or certain somatic sexual characters 

 such as the uterus and the mammary gland, on the one hand, 

 and the prostate, the vesiculae seminales and the penis on the 

 other. The former are probably in a very labile state, easily 

 influenced, as it seems, by the quantity of erotizing hormones 

 temporarily present; whereas the latter organs are more 

 stable, and in their case, it may be, the quantitative laws 

 which hold are of a different kind. 



(b) The Law of "All or Nothing^' 

 We mentioned in a preceding chapter that it had been 

 already suggested by Foges that small particles of gonad suffice 

 to produce a normal development of the sexual characters, but 

 that these fragments must not be too small. Further we 

 discussed above the suggestion of Bouin and Ancel that there 

 is a proportionality between the quantity of interstitial tissue 

 and the stage of development of the genital organs in pigs 

 with retained testicles. Steinach reported a similar pro- 

 portionality in his experiments with testicular transplantation. 

 The observations of Sand seemed to corroborate those of 

 Steinach. I showed in preceding sections of this chapter that 

 our own new experiments make it possible to explain all these 

 observations without assuming a proportionality between the 

 quantity of the hormone and the degree of the hormonic effect. 

 In the first edition of this book I attempted to formulate 

 quantitative laws on the basis of all the different data, not- 

 withstanding that these data were at first sight contradictory. 

 I suggested that the hormonic effect is in a certain measure 

 proportional to the quantity of the hormone, but that beyond 

 this measure the proportionality does not exist. I tried to 



