TABOO AND GENETICS 69 



the quantitative " strength " of that complex 

 would be useful to know before removing any- 

 one secretion from it. Dr Bell states that the 

 oophorectomy operation (removal of ovaries) 

 may be performed upon a masculine type of 

 woman with " little disturbance of the metab- 

 oHsm ..." But he thinks that the degree 

 of masculinity should always be carefully 

 observed before undertaking such operations, 

 which in some cases have most undesirable 

 effects. 



At one end of the scale, this surgeon places 

 the typically feminine woman in all her char- 

 acteristics — with well-formed breasts, menstru- 

 ating freely and feminine in instincts — he says 

 " mind." The intermediate grades consist, he 

 says, of women whose metabolism leans toward 

 the masculine type. Some have sexual desires 

 but no maternal impulse. Others desire mater- 

 nity but take no interest in sex activity, or 

 positively shun it. The physical manifestations 

 of masculine glandular activity take the form 

 of pitch of voice, skin texture, shape and weight 

 of bones, etc. Some of the inter-grades are a 

 little hard to define — the human species is such 

 an inextricable mixture of races, etc. ; but Dr 

 Bell does not hesitate to describe the charac- 

 teristically masculine woman of the extreme 

 type, who " shuns both sexual relations and 

 maternity . . . (She) is on the fringe of femin- 



