THE ADRENALS 23 



produced. If the disease be present in the foetus, 

 taking hold before birth, and so brought into the 

 world with the child, there evolves the condition 

 of pseudo-hermaphroditism. The individual, if 

 a female, presents to a greater or lesser extent the 

 external habits and character of the other sex. 

 So that she is actually taken for a man, although 

 the primary sex organs are ovaries, often not 

 discovered to be such except when examined 

 after an operation or death. How closely such 

 an occurrence touches upon the problems of sex 

 inversion and perversion comes at once to mind. 

 "If the process involving the adrenal cortex 

 attacks it after birth, the symmetrical correspon- 

 dence and harmony of the primary sex organs 

 and the secondary sex characters are not affected. 

 But there often follows a curious hastening of the 

 ripening of body and mind summed up in the 

 word puberty, a precocious puberty, with the 

 most startling effects. A little girl of 2, 3, or 

 4 years of age perhaps will come to exhibit the 

 growth and appearance of a girl of 14. She 

 begins to menstruate, her breasts swell, she shoots 

 up in height and weight, sprouts the hair distri- 

 bution of the adult, and the mentality of the 

 adolescent, restless, acquiring, doubting, emerge. 

 A tot bewitched into puberty ! A boy of 6 or 



