THE HORMONES IN HUMAN REPRODUCTION 



estrogenic hormone but also that of the corpus luteum is 

 necessary. At any rate, these investigators obtained more 

 frequent and more normal responses in castrated female 

 guinea pigs if they added a little corpus luteum hormone 

 after a course of the estrogen. This sets up a neat dilemma : 

 there is of course no corpus luteum, in the ordinary cycle 

 of normal animals, until after the animal has been in estrus. 

 We can only conjecture that in the guinea pig at least, the 

 mature follicles must secrete a little corpus luteum hormone 

 before they rupture and become actual corpora lutea. 



Important as this question of the relation between es- 

 trogens and the estrous urge is, we simply do not know 

 enough as yet to apply the above results to human beings. 

 To what extent the sex urge in women is controlled directly 

 by the estrogenic hormone is a question too complex for 

 analysis at present. The behavior of rats and guinea pigs 

 is difficult enough to understand. Human behavior involves 

 all sorts of mental processes not subject to experimental 

 control. We may be sure, however, that the hormones have 

 an important part in the matter, directly or indirectly, and 

 that without them there could be no human mating. 



The estrogenic hormone as a medicinal drug. When a 

 physician administers an estrogenic hormone he is giving 

 the patient a substitute for her own hormone. He thinks her 

 supply of estrogen is too low for current needs. This lack 

 is, however, not easy to determine or to measure. The signs 

 of hormone deficiency are not very clear, and laboratory 

 tests by examination of the patient's blood, to see how much 

 hormone it is carrying, are expensive and in our present state 

 of knowledge not necessarily decisive. Upsets of the menstrual 

 cycle and other disorders of the female reproductive system 

 may or may not be due to hormone lack; the theory of 

 menstrual disorders is not yet clearly worked out. For this 

 reason their treatment with hormones is at present a matter 

 for very cautious study by specialists who have the facilities 



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