104 HUMAN FECUNDITY 



It is known, however, that early intercourse is injurious to the 

 general health, and it is not difficult to understand in a general 

 way how, if this is so, the reproductive functions would be 

 adversely affected. In the Punjab Census Keport ' it has been 

 shown that the states which practise early marriage on an exten- 

 sive scale have generally a smaller proportion of females at the age 

 period 12 to 15. Inquiries into a large number of cases show that, 

 when the marriage of young people is consummated at an early 

 age, a fairly large number of wives dies of phthisis or some other 

 disease of the respiratory organs or from some ovarian complica- 

 tion within ten years of the consummation of marriage.' x It is 

 also known that when of two races both living a similar kind of 

 life under similar conditions, one practises early marriage and the 

 other does not, as for example the Hindus and Mohammedans in 

 India, fertility is higher among the latter than among the former. 2 

 Finally, it may be noted that the development of fat may lead 

 to sterility. It is a fact well known to breeders that excessive 

 fatness is accompanied by sterility. Animals that have been 

 fattened for agricultural bhows are often barren. There is no 

 doubt that the development of fat may have the same effect in 

 women. It is not quite clear why the development of fat should 

 be inimical to fecundity ; formerly it was supposed that the 

 sperm was prevented from reaching the ovum owing to the 

 presence of a mechanical obstruction. Although this may at times 

 be the cause, it seems that the presence of an excessive amount of 

 fat has a deleterious influence upon the metabolism of the organism 

 and that the maturation of the ova must be in some way affected. 

 Marshall found signs of abnormal ovarian metabolism in inter- 

 stitial tissue of the ovaries of fat cows and heifers. 3 Sterility, it 

 may be remarked, is not to be regarded as an ultimate consequence 

 of * good ' conditions which have been made too ' good '. ' Good ' 

 conditions do not merely consist in abundant food, but also in 

 sufficient exercise and so on. The development of fat in such a 

 degree as to cause sterility is due to an excessive amount of food 

 an abundant food-supply being one only of the factors going to 

 make up ' good ' conditions to the exclusion of other factors. 



1 Quoted by Wattal, loc. cit., p. 23. * Ibid., p. 15. See also Matthews 



Duncan, Fecundity, Fertility, and Sterility, pp. 277 ff. a Marshall, loc. cit., 



p. 595. The corpus luteum persists in the ovary of fat animals and to this fact 

 Fraenkel (Archiv fur Qynaekologie, Bd. Ixviii, 1903) ascribes the barrenness that 

 so often accompanies fatness. 



