v GENERATIVE SYSTEM OF THE FEMALE 207 



of the two elements in different animals. In those animals in 

 which the widely diffused interstitial gland is very greatly 

 developed the corpus luteum is of modest dimensions, whereas it 

 reaches a great development in animals in which the interstitial 

 gland is only represented by a few scattered elements in the 

 stroma of the ovary. 



Even more interesting from our point of view as physiologists 

 appears the fact observed by Cesa-Bianchi in hibernating animals : 

 during their winter lethargy the interstitial glands of the ovary 

 are poorly represented ; while at the time of awakening, and 

 during the whole of the summer, when there is the greatest 

 sexual activity, they assume a great development. With our 

 present knowledge, therefore, the conclusion appears to be justified, 

 that both the elements of the interstitial glands and those of 

 the corpora luted represent the anatomical substratum of the 

 periodic internal secretion of the ovary. By exclusion it appears 

 to me that one may also provisionally admit that all the other 

 epithelial elements of the ovary, which are continually formed 

 and degenerate, without reaching the dignity of mature ova 

 destined for the reproduction of the species, represent the sub- 

 stratum of the continuous internal secretion, which influences 

 the nutrition and metabolism of the whole organism, and on 

 which probably depends the development of the secondary sexual 

 characters. 



We saw that, in man, complete castration performed before 

 puberty causes failure of development of the male secondary 

 sexual characteristics. It is not known whether an analogous 

 phenomenon, that is, the absence of female secondary sexual 

 characteristics, would occur in consequence of bilateral ovariotomy, 

 because surgeons have not had occasion to perform this operation 

 during adolescence. Cases are not rare, however, of women who, 

 being sterile through precocious arrest of development of the 

 ovaries, and of all the female genital apparatus, show a marked 

 want of external feminine characters : masculine habit and 

 temperament, rough and deep voice, narrow hips, undeveloped 

 mammae, stature higher than the average, and growth of hair 

 on the face. 



Bilateral ovariotomy in the treatment of various morbid 

 conditions is an operation which has become sufficiently frequent 

 in modern surgery. The disturbances of the general state which 

 follow it are analogous to those of the climacteric period, and fall 

 in great part within the domain of the nervous system. Among 

 the most common effects of ovariotomy is obesity, the abnormal 

 accumulation of adipose tissue ; but according to statistics this 

 proves true of only half the woman operated on ; in others, either 

 this effect is not noticed, or there is a pronounced opposite effect, 

 that of thinness. There are many circumstances which may 



