30 



THE SEX-COMPLEX 



Atrophy of 

 the muscle- 

 coats of the 

 uterus. 



Abortion 

 following 

 oophorec- 

 tomy in 

 pregnancy. 



Author's 



experimental 



results. 



and that atrophy supervened, especially of the circular 

 muscle-coat. This has been confirmed by Marshall 

 and others. 



Effect of oophorectomy on the pregnant uterus. 

 — Prenant 1 , and later Born and Fraenkel 2 , were 

 probably the first to call attention to the importance 

 of the lutein cells ; and the ' last named showed that 

 removal of the ovaries early in gestation leads to abor- 

 tion in pregnant rabbits. Hick and I, also, invariably 

 produced abortion by the removal of both ovaries in 

 these animals 3 , as the following experiments show : — 



(a) Control experiment — Black doe. Opened in the 

 anticipation that she was a few days pregnant. 

 Pregnancy could not be detected, but the ovaries 

 and uterus were examined and handled, and the 

 abdomen closed. There was no further connexion 

 with the buck. Twenty-three days later a single 

 young one was born alive. This case was, there- 

 fore, regarded in the light of a control experiment. 



(b) Grey doe. Oophorectomy was performed on the 

 seventh day of pregnancy. The uterus was 

 enlarged and small nodules were visible. No 

 abortion was seen to occur. On the thirty-third 

 day after operation the abdomen was opened, 

 and the uterine cornua were found to be very 

 small. Abortion had undoubtedly occurred, and 

 been followed by atrophy of the uterus. 



(c) Black doe. Oophorectomy was performed on the 

 fourteenth day of pregnancy. Abortion took 

 place on the following day. The animal was 

 killed twenty days later when the uterus was 

 found to be atrophied. 



(d) White and grey doe. Oophorectomy was per- 

 formed on the twentieth day of pregnancy. 

 Abortion occurred on the following day. 



Other similar experiments were performed on rabbits, 

 with the invariable result that abortion occurred in 

 every case in which oophorectomy was performed. 



1 Prenant, A., Rev. Gen. de Set., 1898, p. 646. 



2 Fraenkel, L., Archiv. f. Gynak., 1902, vol. lxviii, p. 438. 



1 Bell, W. Blair, and P. Hick, Brit. Med. Journ., 1909, vol. i, p. 655. 



