v GENERATIVE SYSTEM OF THE FEMALE 203 



aggregates, represented at least by groups of molecules, endowed 

 with a very complicated constitution and organisation, in other 

 words we cannot picture them merely as little masses of idioplasm. 

 Finally admitting that the whole adult organism, in so far as it 

 reproduces the hereditary characters of the parents, is only the 

 result of the multiplication and partition among the different 

 organs, tissues, and cellular elements of the idioblasts contained in 

 the germ, we must logically allow in the germ, as it is the model 

 of the organisation to be born, a regular ordering of the myriads 

 of idioblasts which compose it ! 



Although, therefore, the old theory of preformation may be 

 false in the absolute form, which saw in the germ the adult 

 organism in miniature, there is in it a grain of truth, for one 

 must admit in the elements which compose the hereditary 

 substance, a very fine organisation and ordering of relations not 

 less complex than that which is observed in the evolved organism. 

 On the other hand, the theory of epigenesis was false so far as it 

 saw in the development of the germ, a complex neoformation 

 from a substance originally neutral, but it was true in that it 

 admitted, during development, the successive multiplication of 

 the elements from which the tissues, the organs, and the systems 

 arise. 



VIII. To complete what we have said in the present chapter 

 about the functions of the female genital apparatus, it only 

 remains to treat of the ovary as an organ which exercises a 

 notable influence, not only on the other parts of the apparatus 

 itself, of which we have spoken on page 176, but also on the 

 whole organism as we did in the preceding chapter in regard 

 to the internal secretion of the testicle (v. page 152). To form 

 some idea of the importance of the functional activity of the 

 ovary in respect to the regularity of the course of all the great 

 functions of the whole organism, it is sufficient to take account 

 of all the abnormal phenomena which are to be observed in 

 woman at the time of the menopause, when the ovary by a 

 process of involution ceases to function as an organ of ovulation, 

 menstruation is abolished, the uterus and the other parts of 

 the genital apparatus, as well as the mammary glands, atrophy. 

 Coincident with these local changes arise noticeable disturbances 

 in the whole of the economy, specially in reference to the central 

 nervous system disturbances so common, that they may find a 

 place in a physiological picture of this phase of the life of woman. 

 There are neurasthenic phenomena ; general tiredness, feeling of 

 internal pain, giddiness, paraesthesia, hyperaesthesia, occasionally 

 neuralgia variously localised; vasornotor phenomena, recurrent 

 sweats, disturbances of cardiac rhythm; unusual increase or 

 diminution of adipose tissue ; a complex of phenomena, in fact, 

 which reveals a nutritive and functional disturbance of equilibrium 



