136 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
These measurements show conclusively that the shape of the bones in 
fat, well-nourished babies differs from that of the bones in the thinner, 
less well-nourished, in a way that is directly due to the greater relative 
and absolute growth of cartilage in the well-nourished. This supports 
the hypothesis that the stimulus to cartilaginous proliferation is food 
supply. 
The reasonable assumption therefore is, that the changes in the growth 
of the bones of the skeleton, which follow on the removal of the sexual 
glands, and are due to stimulation of the cartilage cells, are occasioned 
by the setting free for general use of food-stuffs which would otherwise 
have been used to provide for the drain of spermatogenesis. In other 
words, the activity of the sexual glands is opposed to body growth. 
SECTION III.— ANATOMICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL 
(continued). 
The acceptance of the hypothesis that the effects of castration are, in part 
at least, to be accounted for by the diminution in the demand for nutriment, 
and the consequent rendering of more of it available for the use of the 
somatic cells, is undoubtedly rendered difficult by the known facts in regard 
to the nutrition of the body during pregnancy. It is well known that 
young human mothers become fat during the early stages of pregnancy. 
Minot (6) has shown that the state of pregnancy acts as a stimulant to 
growth in the young guinea-pig. These facts have been interpreted as 
meaning that the animal is not growing at the maximum of its assimilative 
power, and the interpretation seems inevitable. But to use this as conclusive 
evidence that the effect of castration is not to set free for the use of the 
somatic cells nutriment that would otherwise be employed in providing for 
the cytogenic activities of the reproductive glands is unwarranted. To do 
so is tacitly to assume that the whole of the nutrition that can be absorbed 
by the intestine is immediately made available for the use of the tissues. 
There is evidence to show that this is not the case, and that the liver 
normally prepares a considerable proportion of the nitrogen-containing 
absorpta for immediate excretion, and only passes on for the use of the 
body a small percentage of the total nitrogenous nutriment delivered to it 
from the intestine (31). It may well be that in pregnancy the proportion 
of nutriment accepted and passed on by the liver is increased in amount. 
There is some evidence which suggests that this is so, and there is strong 
evidence to show that this is what happens in some cases of giant growth 
and in acromegaly. This paper is not concerned with such cases of 
