INTERSEXUALITY 389 



foetus of 19 mm. According to Lillie and Bascom (1922; 

 Bascom, 1923), fully differentiated interstitial cells are found 

 from the 3 cm. stage onwards. It may also be that the male 

 sexual gland dominates quantitatively over the female, the 

 former, during embryonic life, being sooner or more highly 

 developed than the female gonad. In any discussion of 

 problems of intersexuahty one must never forget to take 

 into consideration quantitative and time relations. 



It may also be questioned why the female partner does not 

 undergo under the influence of the male hormones a more 

 pronounced masculinization. No answer can be given to this 

 for the moment. Lilhe thinks that there is a certain resistance 

 in the female soma against which the male hormone is acting. 



Willier stated that the transformed gonad contains inter- 

 stitial cells, and he thinks that "the interstitial cells of the 

 freemartin gonad bear no relations to the sexual instincts and 

 little, if any, relations to the secondary sexual characters." 

 But are w^e certain that these cells were normal or functional ? 

 I rather agree with Willier when he says that search should be 

 made for any evidence of interstitial cell activity during the 

 period of foetal development in the testis of the male twin, 

 as recently done by Lillie and Bascom, and that it must be 

 determined how far the anastomosis of the extraembryonic 

 blood vessels between the male and female individuals is 

 developed in every individual case. The last paper of Lillie 

 (1923) may be here referred to. There is, as already said above, 

 a very great variabiUty in regard to the somatic characters of 

 the freemartin. In some cases the male characters are more 

 marked, in others the female ones. During embryonic Ufe male 

 or female body proportions may prevail, whereas the propor- 

 tions of the "castrate" are present in extrauterine life. This 

 extraordinary variabiUty of combinations of sex characters 

 corresponds to our theoretical assumption that quantitative and 

 time relations are of the greatest importance in conditioning the 

 sex characters which depend upon the sexual hormones. The 

 question should be susceptible of experimental investigation. 

 It may be mentioned that A. Mayer (1918) tried to perform 

 castration of foetuses in the pregnant dog. The animal died 

 four days after the operation from peritonitis. As the four 

 foetuses operated upon showed no pathological abnormalities, 

 Mayer concluded that the death of the foetuses was not caused 



