146 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
The knowledge that the form of which A 10 is a type can be produced 
in the absence of functioning testicles is strong evidence in favour of our 
hypothesis. 
This completes the review of the effects of the removal of functioning 
sexual glands upon endochondral bone growth. The hypothesis that the 
absence of the testicles, whatever the cause of that absence be, sets free for 
the use of the somatic cells nutriment which would otherwise be required 
to meet the demands of spermatogenesis, accounts, without strain, for every 
test put upon it by the facts observed. It reduces to intelligible order the 
varying manifestations of the effects of testicular failure, which at first 
sight seem so complicated. With its help, it is easy to understand how it 
is that the body forms of anorchids constitute a series which ranges from 
the normal of the newly castrated boy to the normal of the castrated adult, 
and includes within its range (1) cases in which the limbs are long, the 
pelvis and scapula narrow, and the trunk short ; (2) cases in which the 
limbs are long, the pelvis and scapula broad, and the thoracic segment of 
the trunk long ; and (3) cases in which the limbs are short, the pelvis and 
scapula broad, and the whole trunk long ; for all these variations can 
clearly be accounted for by the varying times of the establishment of a 
condition of somatic nutrition abnormal only in its favourability. 
SUMMARY CONCLUSIONS AND THE END. 
A. The immediate effects of the removal of functioning sexual glands 
are hypothesised as twofold : — 
1. The demands upon the internal food-supply of the body are 
lessened. 
2. The body is deprived of some internal secretion or nervous 
stimulus. 
B. The mediate effects are certainly twofold : — 
1. The cells of the epiphysial cartilages are stimulated more rapidly 
to proliferate. 
2. There is an arrest in the development of the penis, the scrotum, 
the prostate, the antrum of Highmore, and possibly the brain. 
C. There is no evidence to show why the arrest in the growth of these 
parts takes place. It may be supposed to be due to the absence of a 
stimulus to growth conveyed by an internal secretion or through the 
nervous system. However it be effected, it appears to differ in origin 
altogether from the stimulus to growth experienced by the epiphysial 
cartilages. 
D. The normal mode of death of the cartilage cells in the process of 
