The Mammary Glands in Their 

 Endocrin Relationships 



Physiology, Physiological Chemistry 

 and Experimental Pathology 



FREDERICK. S. HAMMETT 

 / 



PHILADELPHIA 



Introduction 



The Mammary Gland as a Sex Characteristic. The growth and de- 

 velopment of the mammary glands, for the assumption of the secretory 

 function and production of milk, is one of the distinguishing secondary 

 sexual characteristics of the female. According to Pelikan the breasts 

 are considered among certain primitive peoples, especially the .Russian 

 Skopts, to be the factors responsible for other sex manifestations. This 

 idea Virchow has modified in the aphorism that "Woman is woman 

 because of her generative glands." Pfliiger, Hegar, and Klebs strongly 

 objected to this conception that the somatic and psychic sexual 

 characteristics are dependent upon the generative glands, while Tandler 

 and Grosz are of the opinion that "what are called secondary sex char- 

 acteristics are in reality only characteristics of the species, that is to say, 

 properties peculiar to a species or an order of vertebrates and having no 

 primary relation with the organs of generation. Thus, the mammary 

 glands are the outcome of an agglomeration of sweat glands, which later 

 became the engine of a different function and was included within the 

 sphere of influence of the organs of reproduction" (Biedl). 



Such an hypothesis, though appealing from a phylogenetic point of 

 view, is somewhat weakened by the results of the investigations concerning 

 the functions and effects of the internal s.ecretions of the generative glands 

 on the mammae, these studies having shown an apparently close and inti- 

 mate interrelationship existing from the earliest periods between these 

 tissues and variations in mammary activities. 



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