138 CARL R. MOORE 



nections and remains in a living condition after the transplan- 

 tation. It is thought the modification is affected by a hormone 

 produced by the interstitial cells, that its action is a chemical 

 one, and that it may sensitize the nervous system to react in 

 a new capacity. 



These results have been criticised severely by many investi- 

 gators, and to the writer's knowledge the observations have 

 not been corroborated in other laboratories. In regard to criti- 

 cisms the following annotation from Lancet (vol. 193, no. 18 

 of ii 1917, p. 687) is of interest: 



It is a drawback to the experimental method, as practised on lines 

 of Baconian induction, that anyone may make a few random experi- 

 ments and with the results lay some sort of claim to general attention. 

 Hence we should preserve a carefully critical attitude towards claims 

 to medical discovery until some circumstance evinces the likelihood 

 of some truth in them. Lately (Zeitschrift fiir Sexualwissenschaft, 

 Aug., 1917) the physiological work of Steinach, Foges, and Lode has 

 come in for repeated discussion. Steinach described having changed 

 the sexual disposition of small mammals by implanting, as the case 

 might be, an ovary into a young male or testicular substance into a 

 young female. When the necessary operations were successful the 

 treated animals in their behavior showed reversal of the natural con- 

 ditions, males attempting to mate with males and females with femalt s. 

 But (a very important point) such was the case only if the young 

 animal so treated had been first deprived of its own primary repro- 

 ductive gland — i.e., if it had first been castrated or spayed — other- 

 wise the implantation had no feminizing or masculinizing effect. It 

 was, in short, as though a clear field was necessary for the exogenous 

 influence. Around these findings the theory has been constructed 

 that the products of testicular and ovarian secretion — that is the 

 specific reproductive hormone of the two sexes— are sharply antago- 

 nistic the one to the other. Their effect on the brain, from which the 

 sexual impulse proceeds, is described as an 'erotising' one, in the 

 direction of masculinity or femininity respectively. The mode of action 

 is supposed to be bio-chemical. The conclusions want more evidence 

 to back them. 2 



It was during the process of some studies on sexual modifica- 

 tion in rats and guinea-pigs that Prof. F. R. Lillie suggested the 

 desirability of repeating Steinach's experiments. To Doctor 



- The article referred to has not yet been obtained by the writer; possibly 

 it has not reached this country. 



