106 INFLUENCE OF HORMONES 



seminal tubules took place, with increase of the 

 interstitial or Ley dig's cells. The vaginal opening in 

 rats disappeared, partly or completely. The sexual 

 instincts became male, the animals recognised a 

 female in heat from one that was not, and attempted 

 to copulate. 



Steinach considers that he has proved from these 

 results that sex is not fixed or predetermined but 

 dependent on the puberty gland. By sex here he 

 obviously means the instincts and somatic characters, 

 for sex in the first instance, as we have already 

 pointed out, means the difference between ovary and 

 testis, between ova and spermatozoa. It is difficult 

 to accept all Steinach' s results without confirma- 

 tion, especially those which show that the feminised 

 male is more female than the normal female. Such 

 a conclusion inevitably suggests that the investigator 

 is proving too much. 



The subject of the influence of hormones from the 

 gonads is mentioned, but not fully discussed, in a 

 volume by Dr. Jacques Loeb, entitled The Organism 

 as a Whole^ Loeb entirely omits the problem of the 

 origin of somatic sex-characters, and fails to perceive 

 that the fact that such characters are dependent to a 

 marked degree on hormones derived from the gonads, 

 together with their relation to definite habits and 

 functions connected with the behaviour of the sexes 

 to each other, is proof that these characters are not 

 gametogenic, but were originally due to external 

 stimulation of particular parts of the soma. 



1 Putnam's Sons, 1916. 



