152 PHYSIOLOGY CHAP. 



most numerous in the nervus pudendus, the second in the nervus 

 erigens, as the experiments of FranQois - Franck previously 

 mentioned demonstrate. 



The nervus erigens is normally in a state of tonic stimulation. 

 For after it is cut, the vessels of the corpora cavernosa contract, and 

 less blood flows from an incision in them than before the division 

 of the nerve. 



Spina has demonstrated in guinea-pigs that inhibition of 

 erection is the result of stimulation of the vaso-constrictor nerves. 



VII. That the activity of the male sexual apparatus exercises 

 a great influence on the other organs, and on the organism as a 

 whole, may be affirmed on the basis of the reliable observations 

 and experiments of which a summary is now given. 



Of the greatest importance in this respect are the well-known 

 effects of castration in animals or man. In domestic animals 

 castration is practised with the object of making domestication 

 and fattening easier in stallions, bulls, ranis, and cocks. On men, 

 in whom the ablation or artificial atrophy of the testicles is known 

 as emasculation, it is practised on religious or moral grounds, as in 

 the sect of the Skoptzy and amongst the Gallas, or with the object 

 of providing custodians for the harems of Mussulmans, or soprano 

 voices for the choirs of the great Christian churches, as was done 

 during the whole of the eighteenth century, or finally for surgical 

 reasons. 



When emasculation is performed on boys before puberty it 

 causes failure in the development of the so-called secondary sexual 

 characteristics : the bodily conformation, appearance, and tempera- 

 ment of those castrated approach those of the female sex ; the 

 skin becomes paler and smoother, the subcutaneous layer of fat 

 more abundant, the growth of hair 011 the face deficient; the 

 development of the larynx is arrested at about one-third the usual 

 size, and owing to this is produced the soprano or contralto voice 

 common in the female sex ; the thoracic curvature diminishes, the 

 pelvis becomes larger, the bones of the limbs lengthen noticeably ; 

 the muscular and nervous systems assume a less degree of tonicity ; 

 and the psychical character becomes softer, more docile, less 

 impulsive and energetic. 



In the adult man castration produces no such conspicuous 

 change. The secondary sexual characteristics, being already 

 developed, persist ; the hair, however, falls out, the beard becomes 

 thin, the skin becomes clear and pale, the mammae are accentuated, 

 the thighs and the hips increase in size, and the voice becomes 

 weaker ; the sexual feelings are blunted in many cases, in others 

 they persist, at least for some time; now and then sexual 

 inversion manifests itself (the so-called uranism); intellectual 

 acumen may remain, of which we have examples in Narses, 

 Origen, and Abelard, but more often those castrated at mature 



