Читать книгу Sex & Character онлайн

22 страница из 80

ssss1 So also in the opposite case; it cannot be wholly denied that ovariotomy is followed by the appearance of masculine characters.

The possession by every cell of primitive sexuality on which the secretion of the sexual glands has little effect might be shown further by consideration of the effects of grafting male genital glands on female organisms. For such an experiment to be accurate it would be necessary that the animal from which the testis was to be transplanted should be as near akin as possible to the female on which the testis was to be grafted, as, for instance, in the case of a brother and sister; the idioplasm of the two should be as alike as possible. In this experiment much would depend on limiting the conditions of the experiment as much as possible so that the results would not be confused by conflicting factors. Experiments made in Vienna have shown that when an exchange of the ovaries has been made between unrelated female animals (chosen at random) the atrophy of the ovaries follows, but that there is no failure of the secondary sexual characters (e.g., degeneration of the mammæ). Moreover, when the genital glands of an animal are removed from their natural position and grafted in a new position in the same animal (so that it still retains its own tissues) the full development of the secondary sexual characters goes on precisely as if there had been no interference, at least in cases where the operation is successful. The failure of the transplantation of ovaries from one animal to another may be due to the absence of family relationship between the tissues; the influence of the idioplasm probably is of primary importance.