24 ENDOCRINE THERAPEUTICS 



7 may suddenly, in the course of a few weeks 

 or months, become a little man, robust, rather 

 short and stocky, but moustached, with the 

 muscular strength and the sexual powers of a 

 man and thinking of a man. It is all as if into 

 some fermentable medium or solution a little 

 yeast were dropped, that changed the quiet calm 

 of its surface into a bubbling, effervescing revolu- 

 tion. It suggests at once that maturation, the 

 transformation of the child into the man or 

 woman, must be due to the pouring into the 

 blood and the body fluids of some substance 

 which acts like yeast in the fermentable solution. 

 The adrenal cortex is one source of the maturity- 

 producing internal secretions. 



" If trouble in the adrenal cortex starts after 

 puberty, phenomena of the same type, but of a 

 different order, exhibit themselves. A woman, 

 say in the thirties, becomes thus afflicted. Slowly 

 or quickly her body will be covered by an abundant 

 growth of hair, more or less of a beard and mous- 

 tache appear on her face, her voice will become 

 deep and penetrating, her muscles will harden, 

 and she will show a capacity for hard physical 

 labour. Sexually she appears to be made over ; 

 masculinity now predominates in her make-up. 

 Virilism is the name by which the French, in 



