Taboo and Genetics - A Study of the Biological, Sociological and Psychological Foundation of the Family by Melvin Moses Knight;Phyllis Mary Blanchard;Iva Lowther Peters
page 48 of 200 (24%)
page 48 of 200 (24%)
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exist in the opposite type of body, as we saw it to be in
cattle--though it apparently could not occur unless compensated for in some way by the other secretions. This is a very great departure from birds, rats and guinea pigs, whose bodies change over their sex type when the gonads are transplanted. Birds take on the male appearance when the sex glands are removed (or retain it, if they are males). This is not true of man. The chemical life processes of the two sexes after puberty in the human species are quite characteristic. The male and female types are both very different from the infantile. When it becomes necessary to desex men, the resulting condition is _infantile_, not female.[23] The desexed man is of course the eunuch of ancient literature. If desexed near maturity, he might look like a normal man in many respects; but if the operation were performed before puberty, his development is simply arrested and remains infantile--incomplete. Only in 1878 was the practice of desexing boys to get the famous adult male soprano voices for the Sistine Choir discontinued. Removal of the ovaries in women likewise produces an infantile condition, which is pronounced only in case the operation takes place very young. [24] From his clinical experience, Dr Bell [2, p.160] concludes that no very definite modifications can be produced in an adult woman by withdrawal of the ovarian secretion alone. "There must be," he says, "some gross change in those parts of the endocritic system, especially apart from the genital glands, which normally produce masculinity--potentiality that appears to be concentrated in the suprarenals, the pituitary and probably in the pineal." What, then, do we mean by "male" and "female" in man? Take Dr Russell |
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