366 INTERNAL SECRETION 



anatomico-biological in character, to show that the absence of 

 one or both antlers does not affect the virility of the animal. 

 Absence of antlers may accompany abnormal formation of the 

 male sexual organs. 



Old females, which have become sterile, incline to antler 

 formation, as do also females with diseased internal genitals. 

 The antler development of hermaphrodites is said to be more 

 influenced by the epididymis than the testes. 



Rb'rig is unable to give a satisfactory explanation of abnor- 

 malities, and he closes his treatise with the remark that the 

 originating cause of the malformation of antlers will probably 

 remain a problem for some time to come. 



Those cases in which the secondary sex characteristics are 

 changed on one side only, usually upon the same side as the 

 gland with which they correspond, may also be taken as evidence 

 in favour of the theory that sex characteristics are dependent 

 upon the genital glands. 



The one-sided development of the mammary glands in men 

 and the development of a single antler in female cervida? are 

 frequently advanced as instances of one-sided pervertion of the 

 stigmata of sex. But that these deductions are inconclusive is 

 shown by the fact that very different accounts are given of 

 the manner in which the antlers of stags are affected by one-sided 

 castration. Some authors state that one-sided castration is fol- 

 lowed by loss of the antler on the same side ; others again affirm 

 that it is the antler of the opposite side which is lost. 



A case described by M. Weber is frequently quoted as an 

 instance of asymmetry in the somatic sex characteristics. Weber 

 observed a finch (Fringilla coelebs} which possessed a right testis 

 and had male colouring and plumage upon the right side ; the 

 left side was female in colouring and plumage, and was furnished 

 with an ovary. This freak of nature is very difficult of explana- 

 tion. Halban, and later Pfliiger, regarded this bird as a one-sided 

 hermaphrodite, not only in regard to the arrangement of its 

 genital glands, but also in its somatic sex characters. Nussbaum, 

 on the other hand, regards this case as proof of the great influence 

 of the nerves upon the secondary sex characteristics. The stig- 

 mata of sex are usually arranged symmetrically upon both sides 

 of the body ; but it is important to remember, in this connection, 

 that Virchow laid special stress upon the fact that, in the male 

 pseudo-hermaphrodite Katharina Hohmann, the left side of the 

 body, in \vhich the genital anomaly was situated, was generally 

 (extremities, rump, face) less well developed than the right. 



The results of castration in both man and animals have fre- 

 quently been advanced as evidence in favour of the congenital 

 origin of the characteristics of sex. It is an undeniable fact that, 

 if the genital glands are removed at the earliest possible date from 

 two individuals of the same species, but of different sex, these 



