GONADS AS CONTROLLERS OF CHARACTERISTICS 143 



Thus it will be realized that these physical factors (weight and 

 length) are very poor barometers of the conditions here repre- 

 sented, that of an intersex condition. If, for instance, rats V and 

 VIII (males containing growing ovaries) be compared with 

 VII (a normal male), those containing the ovaries are both lighter 

 in weight and shorter in body length than the normal male, but 

 do not fall to the level even of the heaviest female (IX). We 

 may perhaps, with all justice, refer this decrease to the presence 

 of the ovary. Also if the females containing testis tissue (I, II, 

 and VI) be compared to the mean weight of the two normal fe- 

 males (III and IX) there appears, only in case of rat VI, an in- 

 crease in weight which by no means approaches the weight of 

 the normal male; and had only female IX been used as control 

 there would be an actual decrease in comparison of I and IX. 

 The former (I) having had the ovary removed should have been 

 heavier than the latter (IX) which had ovaries present.^ The 

 question also arises whether we should refer these weight modi- 

 fications to a variation in the intensity of the sexual condition, 

 or whether they may not be merely the result of disturbances in 

 the regulators of metabolism which we know may produce vari- 

 ations. It may be possible that the elimination of some secre- 

 tion of other glands may affect the final result as well. If this 

 were true, surely we could not consider this secretion as a factor 

 in determining the sexual condition of the animal. 



Weight and length are then very unsatisfactory criteria for 

 determining the changes associated with cross transplantation 

 of gonads. 



HAIR, MAMMARY GLANDS, SKELETAL CHANGES, FAT DEPOSIT 



Steinach has used a few other criteria as tests for the result of 

 the sex hormone (Pubertatsdriise) in its powers of modification, 

 but the writer also finds it impossible to consider these as valid 

 support for the hypothesis. 



® Some experiments under way at the present time indicate a potential weight 

 difference in the two sexes that appears to be independent of the gonad. Even 

 though these experiments are not yet complete, the indication is that early spayed 

 female rats, though they increase in weight over that of the normal females, do 

 not reach to the height of the growth curve of the castrated males. 



