THE 



AMERICAN NATURALIST 



EXPERIMENTAL INTERSEXUALITY AND THE 

 SEX-PROBLEM 1 



RICHARD GOLDSCHMIDT 

 Kaiser Wilhelm-Institut fur Biologie, Berlin 



Until a comparatively recent time the sex-problem 

 was one of the white spots on the map of biology. There 

 is hardly another problem which has been such a play- 

 ground of dilettantism, and if we look through the older 

 literature on the sex-problem we find almost as many 

 philosophers and economists inventing sex-theories as 

 there are biologists. But there is scarcely another prob- 

 lem in biology which in the brief period of a decade and 

 a half has emerged from a state of absolute ignorance 

 into one of most hopeful knowledge. The all-important 

 step which has been made during this time is the com- 

 plete insight into the elementary mechanism which pro- 



i Evening lecture delivered at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Labora- 

 tory, July 28, 1916. The majority of the facts recorded here as well as the 

 principle of their explanation have been published in a series of papers 

 which appeared following a preliminary report in Sitzungsbcr. Ges. Morphol. 

 Physiol. Miinchen, 1911, namely: Goldschmidt, R., < ' Erblichkeitsstudien an 

 Schmetterlingen, " I, Ztschr. induct. Abstammungsl., 7, 1912; Goldschmidt, 

 R., u. Poppelbaum, H., "Erblichkeitsstudien an Schmetterlingen," II, Ibid., 

 Vol. 12, 1914; Poppelbaum, H., "Beitraege zur Kenntnis, etc.," Ibid.; 

 Goldschmidt, R., ' ' A Preliminary Report, etc.," Proc. Nat. Ac. Sc., I, 1915; 

 Goldschmidt, R., ' ' Genetic Factors and Enzyme Reaction, ' ' Science, Vol. 43, 

 1916. See further the related chapters in Goldschmidt, R., "Einfiihrung 

 in die Vererbungswissenschaf t., " 2. ed., Leipzig, 1913, and in Correns, C., 

 and Goldschmidt, R., "Vererbung und Bestimmung des Geschlechts, " 

 Berlin, 1913. A complete account of the entire work, with the necessary 

 illustrations, is in preparation. I am greatly indebted to Dr. R. A. Spaeth 

 for revising this MS. 



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