90 INTRODUCTION TO SEXUAL PHYSIOLOGY 



castration is not followed by the suppression of the horns. In 

 the castrated cat the growth of the tissues of the cheek or 

 jowl is partially arrested. And similarly with other castrated 

 manmials, there is an approach to what appears to be the female 

 or neutral type, both in the general bodily conformation and in 

 the secondary sexual characters. 



Castration has been practised on the domestic animals from 

 very early times for economic reasons, as it was recognised that 

 in this condition they fattened better and faster and that working 

 animals (horses, oxen) were easier to manage and generally 

 more serviceable. It is not quite clear whether the tendency 

 to put on fat in castrated animals (a tendency which we find 



Fig. 60. — .Successive stages in the regression of the comb of the cock after 

 castration : («) at the time of castration ; (6) five weeks after ; (c) seven 

 weeks after ; (d) when regression was complete. (From Pezard.) 



also in females which have been spayed, and in women after the 

 menopause) is an indirect effect, due to greater lethargy and 

 freedom from sexual excitement, or whether it is a direct metabolic 

 result of the absence of the sexual glands, but certain investigators 

 (Loewy and Eichter, Murlin and Bailey) have found a definite 

 lowering of the metabolism after castration, and it has been 

 suggested that the gonads produce a specific substance which 

 promotes oxidation in the body. 



With birds, the effects of castration in the male on the general 

 superficial characteristics is not so striking as with mammals. 

 This may be partly accounted for by the assumption that the 

 neutral type is nearer the female than the male, for, as w^e shall 

 see later, the removal of the ovary in the female results in the 

 development of what one is accustomed to think of as male 

 characters. Witli fowls, castration is followed by an arrest in 



