428 INTERNAL SECRETIONS 



was present notwithstanding the great development of the 

 interstitial tissue. I think that this conclusion is unjustified. 

 Berblinger states that some spermatozoa were to be found in 

 the left seminal vesicle in the case described; evidently the 

 left testicle, which was less atrophied than the right one, 

 tenlporarily produced spermatozoa. So one might conclude 

 that the generative cells have not the endocrine function 

 ascribed to them. And the position might then be summed 

 up in the conclusion that the testicle has no endocrine function 

 at all! Such a case is, indeed, very instructive, showing how 

 discrepancy between experimental and pathological data can- 

 not be used as a proof against a theory built up on an experi- 

 mental basis. A case like that of Berblinger might be explained 

 in two different ways; first, it is possible that the interstitial 

 cells, though histologically normal, were functionally abnormal, 

 as seems possible in view of some of our experiments (1922 a, 

 1923); secondly, it is possible that the soma had not the 

 normal capacity for response to sexual hormones owing to some 

 other disturbing factor, possibly of an endocrine nature. 



In view of the experimental data as given in Chapter IV, 

 considered in conjunction with the clinical data, I think that 

 eunuchoidism in man can be explained in the following way. 

 Since minimal quantities of testicular substance and also, as 

 we suppose, minimal quantities of sexual hormones are 

 sufficient for a normal masculinization, we must suppose that 

 eunuchoidism depends, as I have emphasized (1921, 1922), 

 not upon variations in the quantities of hormones produced, 

 but upon a complete suppression of the hormonic activity of 

 the sex gland. This suppression might be due to an infantilism 

 or to a retrograde development on the part of the sex gland, as 

 in those cases where eunuchoidism develops in adults previously 

 normal. This infantilism or backward development of the 

 testicle may be primary or secondary; in the latter case some 

 other endocrine disturbance may cause the deficiency of the 

 sex gland. There is evidently no hard and fast line to be 

 drawn between the cases with a primary deficiency of the sex 

 gland and those cases where the deficiency of the sex gland is a 

 secondary one, the interrelations between the sex glands and 

 other organs of internal secretion being very manifold. There 

 are, besides cases of decided eunuchoidism, transitional stages 

 between eunuchoidism and normal sexual activity of the highest 



