424 INTERNAL SECRETIONS 



place, since the maximal hormonic effect is very likely already 

 attained when the threshold quantity of hormones is produced. 

 But one must not forget that the position is really a much more 

 complicated one than it is in an experiment with partial castra- 

 tion. It suffices to recall in how far-reaching a way the hor- 

 monic effect in the female seems to be dependent upon the 

 quantity of hormones produced. Further, an augmentation 

 in the quantity of hormones during childhood may cause an 

 accelerated development of all the characters dependent upon: 

 the sexual hormones. Sexual puberty will be attained sooner 

 than normally; there will be a sexual precocity. One might 

 suppose that those cases of sexual precocity which are not 

 complicated by other pathological or teratological factors, later 

 on will become sexually normal. If the augmentation in the 

 quantity of sexual hormones sets in at a period at which all the 

 somatic sex characters are already definitely fixed, probably no 

 change as to hormonic effects will take place. The psycho- 

 sexual behaviour which is so variable, might, however, depend 

 upon these quantitative changes; but as already said in a fore- 

 going chapter, the psycho-sexual behaviour in man depends 

 so largely upon different external factors transformed into 

 psychical coefficients that it is very difficult to examine psycho- 

 sexual behaviour on a purely endocrine basis. 



We will now examine the question as to how far clinical and 

 anatomical observation is in accordance with these theoretical 

 considerations. The subject presents great difficulty, as we 

 have no way of estimating the quantities of the sexual hormones 

 beyond what we can learn from an anatomical and histological 

 examination of the gonads. 



A. EUNUCHOIDISM. 



A great many cases of underdeveloped male sex characters 

 have been carefully studied in the last few years. The papers 

 of Tandler and Gross (1910), Hirschfeld (1916, case A, and 1917)^ 

 Wildholz (1917), Josef son (1915), and Furno (1922) may be 

 referred to here. I mention these papers from my own know- 

 ledge, but the number of similar observations which I have not 

 verified is very great. The literature will be found in the above- 

 mentioned papers. The individuals with underdevelopment 

 of the sex glands are now usually called eunuchoids, as in 



