Schenk's Theory: The Determination of Sex

CHAPTER II

According to St. Hilaire, the male sex is more common in the case of scantily nourished (and therefore weakly) animals. Giron de Buzareingues says that the same is sometimes the case with domesticated mammalia. Martegoute has found that the sheep which bear female offspring are, on the average, of a heavier weight. Furriers have remarked that in fruitful regions more furs of female animals are always to be had than in unfruitful districts. It would follow from this that better nourishment assists the production of females.

This observation seems, however, to be concordant with the general practice of farmers, according to which it is usual to keep a greater number of the females of the domesticated animals, on account of their utility. The males are kept only in such numbers as may be absolutely necessary for breeding purposes, or for stronger beasts of burden. The surplus is, by means of trade, disposed of in other regions. In consequence, in poor unfruitful districts, the number of males is pretty nearly the same as in fruitful regions, the actual requisite number being in both cases about the same. The females, on the contrary, can be much better kept in fruitful districts, where there are rich and fertile meadows and better fodder, than in the poor regions. In the latter the females are consequently rarer.

Wilkens attempted to apply diet to the production of sex in the domesticated mammalia, and laid down the following principles: The food must be of influence upon the embryo in the mother’s womb, and the better nourishment favors the female, the worse the male sex.

We have already mentioned the views of Robin and Born respecting the influence of food.

DÜsing turned his attention to the effect of diet upon horses, with a view to the development of sex.

The state of nutrition of the parents would have an influence upon the development of the embryo. In this case, also, the better condition produced females, the worse males.

According to DÜsing, if the mother was well nourished, old semen operating upon a young ovum would produce a majority of female offspring. On the other hand, if the mother was insufficiently fed, young semen operating upon an old ovum would produce a majority of male individuals.

According to Wappaens, richer or poorer nourishment in years of different fruitfulness in Sweden has no effect upon the prevalence of one or the other sex.

Ploss also tried to draw attention to the fact that better food, in the case of the male as well as of the female parent, could have some effect. Thus, a balance of the numbers of the two sexes depended upon the better or worse harvests in different regions. If an excess of one sex appeared in one year, in consequence of an abundance of food, in the next year unfavorable circumstances raised the number of the other sex, and thus a proportion was reached which represented the normal numbers.

According to Fiquet, female calves are born if the cow is poorly fed. This diet should last some weeks, but the bull should be abundantly fed before serving.

According to Landois, food plays a most important part in the determination of sex amongst insects. If the germ be richly nourished, females are principally developed. (Landois, ‘Physiologie.’)

A great number of different foods and drinks, and also substances which have direct medical effects, are commonly known or held to exercise an effect upon the activity of the generative organs, and of these some are also recommended under medical advice.

Many of the medicinal substances should be carefully avoided. The use of them may prove deleterious. Cantharides, or various preparations of them, as well as other substances enumerated under this head in pharmacology, are distinctly to be eschewed. Not only are they absolutely incapable of exercising any influence over the sex of the future offspring, but they can also be distinctly injurious to the whole organism, or in any case to the urinary and generative organs in this way, that, after having produced their effect, they occasion a reaction, which leads to abnormal conditions and inflammation of the kidneys. No expedient of this kind, no food of any sort, nor drink, should ever be used, without medical advice. Most of all are these expedients out of place where any question exists of determining the sex of offspring.

All these nostrums, as well as the particular kinds of food or drink, exercise only temporarily a certain influence over the activity of the sexual organs, exactly as they do in general over the nervous condition, the mental disposition, humor, etc., which are temporarily stimulated.

Herewith may be classed the expedient of the injection of semen recommended by Brown-Sequard, in consequence of which people of advanced age enjoy a feeling of rejuvenescence. His first experiment was tried upon himself, and, in spite of his advanced age, he felt himself quite fresh and young. Originally the injection consisted of a sort of watery extract made from the testicles of animals. Afterwards preparations were used which had been more carefully prepared. These extracts are employed by medical men under the name of spermin or orchidin.

In a similar way an attempt was made to obtain extracts and pure preparations from the ovaries of animals (oophorin), which were to be used in the same manner.

After having given ourselves the trouble to glance through the long series of different views which have existed concerning the origin of sex, we are struck with the fact, that scarcely a single objective observation has been made that could lead to a positive result in the development of sex in the new-born. Out of all these theories, however, one hypothesis does seem to be tenable, and to that we shall find ourselves compelled to give our adhesion here, after having set forth the detailed explanations which shall presently follow. Now, we were not led to the recognition of the truth of this teaching by previously assumed theories. On the contrary, it was after we had completed our experiments, and had been led by them to positive results, that we found ourselves compelled, in order to find an explanation of the whole process, to fall back upon the theory of cross-heredity of sex, and to place it, by our own experience, upon firmer foundations. It must be briefly remarked here that the literature of this subject is very extensive, and to trace out all the literary results would lead us too far. For which reason I have limited myself to the actual facts.

In order to enter more fully into our theory, it will in the first place be necessary to turn our attention to the products of excretion which are eliminated from the bodies of animals, in a more or less solid, fluid, or gaseous form, as the results of the transformations of matter which have taken place in the bodies of the animals. The chemical constituents of the evacuations are either such as it has not been possible to convert to use in the body, or such as are evacuated as the final product of the oxidation which has been effected in the body by the process of combustion.

Of these the former are evacuated from the body as so much inert matter which has not been affected by the digestive juice, nor altered in any other way. The latter are given off from the animal’s body in various states of oxidation in the urine, sweat, or dung, or else in a gaseous form by the lungs.

A great number of the substances which have been hitherto exactly examined are secreted by the kidneys and appear in the urine. In this fluid are found nitrogenous products of secretion, others free from nitrogen, and inorganic substances.

Amongst the substances free from nitrogen, I found myself prompted more particularly to select as an object of my attention the carbo-hydrate (sugar) found in the urine. Three groups of closely connected compounds are reckoned amongst the carbo-hydrates. They consist of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, which contain in the molecule six, or a multiple of six, atoms of carbon. The hydrogen and oxygen are in the same proportion as in water. (Arnold.)

The three groups are grape-sugar, cane sugar, and cellulose. In the urine grape-sugar occurs normally among the products of excretion in inconsiderable quantities. Under exceptional circumstances, in cases of polyuria, inosite can occur. (H. Voll, Neumeister.) In addition we find also a carbo-hydrate mentioned by E. Luther that would be of the character of dextrine, and probably owes its existence to the secretive activity of the urinary bladder.

Upon boiling the urine with mineral acids we obtain substances which separate as brown flakes. We denote these “humin-substances” (Huminsubstanzen, UdrÁnsky, Salkowski). In addition to these must be enumerated animal gum, isomaltose, pentaglycoses, lÆvo-rotary sugar, the conjugate glycuronic acids, etc. In conclusion, the occurrence of milk-sugar must be mentioned, which appears in the last days of pregnancy. The last-mentioned substances occur in very insignificant quantities, and are not to be enumerated among the ordinary constituent parts of the urine.

The carbo-hydrates may be, in many respects, of high interest for the activity of the organism in its metabolism, as they are found amongst the products of excretion only as final products of the completed transformation and using-up of the food.

The excretion of a carbo-hydrate in the urine can be interpreted to mean that the process of combustion in the organism in question has not been complete. By some agencies, at present unknown to us, the efficiency of the organism becomes impaired in such a way that it does not fully use up all combustible substances.

A number of substances can be excreted from the body which are capable of a further process of oxidation—for example, until they are oxidized into carbonic acid and water. The heat which could be hereby generated is withdrawn from the organism, and must be procured by fresh nourishment, in order to replace that which has been lost by an imperfect assimilation of the food.

One substance which occurs in the urine, about which much has been written by various authors, by physiologists, by medical men, and by chemists, is of high importance for our inquiry. That is the sugar found in normal urine.

When this substance occurs in the human organism, no matter in how small a quantity, its presence always suggests the assumption that it ought not to have been secreted in the form of grape-sugar. For, if the organism possessed its full efficiency to deal with the necessary quantity of food taken, then one might also suppose that a substance such as grape-sugar, be the quantity never so small, would not be secreted in an unaltered form, but must be further used up, seeing that the sugar would be decomposed, oxidized, in short, burnt up.

The imperfect performance of an operation of this kind by the organism is not to be taken for a symptom of pathological processes. In point of fact, it has been impossible to recognize, in the case of individuals afflicted with this imperfection, any symptoms of processes of such a character as would furnish the remotest occasion for the appearance of disease.

When small quantities of saccharine matter are excreted, derived from carbo-hydrates which have been swallowed, or, on the other hand, formed within the human body, say from albuminous principles, it might be expected that this excretion, occurring repeatedly in different individuals, ought to be regarded as a normal metabolic process. Such an occurrence must be interpreted, in fact, in much the same way as other small anomalies which affect the organism, whose presence leads to no further consequences.

But our attention must be directed, not to the sugar alone, but to a number of other so-called reducing substances, because these, as regards certain reactions, resemble grape-sugar, and have to be distinguished from it.

In the year 1858 my highly-revered master, E. BrÜcke, drew attention to the presence of grape-sugar in normal urine. The foundation of the theory of normal glycosuria was laid by his obtaining the potassium compound of sugar (zuckerkali) from large quantities of urine. His theory has been since much elaborated, and a great deal written both for and against it. When this symptom in the urine reaches a certain proportion per cent., the condition of the individual must be described as diseased.

If we apply qualitative chemical tests for sugar, we soon find that they are disturbed by a number of reducing substances which exist in the urine, and it is often difficult to determine whether the processes used to discover the sugar do not produce more reducing substances than the sugar itself.

Bence-Jones agrees with BrÜcke’s opinion respecting the presence of sugar in normal urine, and insists upon its power to rotate the plane of polarization to the right. More recent authors, Ivanof, Huizinga, Pavy, Abeles, have stated this fact in different ways, and it yet remains to be verified. The fact existed, but not without meeting with contradiction. Maly, Seegen, FriedlÄnder, and many others sought to oppose the view.

Although in many cases with the commonly used reactions it is impossible to demonstrate the presence of sugar in samples of urine, nevertheless, the sugar has been isolated in considerable quantities, by means of precipitation with acetate of lead and ammonia, and by subsequent decomposition of the precipitate with sulphuretted hydrogen (E. Ludwig), after which it has been successfully tested and recognized by characteristic reactions.

We shall here concern ourselves principally with the appearance or the increase of the sugar, so far as its presence according to the views hitherto held is normal.

We are acquainted with a so-called alimentary glycosuria, which is occasioned by this, that the individual in question, after having eaten an excessive quantity of sugar, easily recognizes an increase of the quantity of sugar in the urine. But there are also individuals, who, though they may have eaten a very large quantity of sugar, cannot afterwards discover a trace of it in the urine. In these cases complete combustion has taken place.

But here we must also next direct our attention to the fact that there are persons who, in the digestion of their food under all circumstances, excrete sugar, though perhaps in very small quantities. Others, after eating proportionately much larger quantities, excrete no perceptible sugar in the urine. Hoppe-Seyler, after having eaten 225 grammes of sugar, could find no trace of it in his urine. (Moritz.) Frerichs admits exceptions, and relates that in the case of two men he could always discover sugar in the urine after they had eaten sugar, although he considered both healthy. Then we find specialists like Budge, C. Schmidt, Mosler, Schiff, Vogel, C. Ludwig, Voit, etc., who admit, after their experiments with men and beasts, an artificial glycosuria, which is normal. Seegen, after feeding dogs with cane sugar, found inverted sugar (invertzucker) in the urine. The sugar which he was able to identify was of two kinds, one of them turning the polarization plane to the right, and the other turning it to the left.

Experiments with champagnes, various other wines and sweetmeats, which contain great quantities of sugar, gave as a regular result perceptible sugar in the urine of many individuals. As a consequence of greater quantities being taken, an excessive glycosuria set in. Its duration depended upon the occasioning causes alone. On their removal, the quantity of sugar either returned to a minimum or entirely disappeared.

The presence of sugar in normal human urine is therefore possibly in accordance with all the above-mentioned observations. This fact must be considered a physiological axiom as regards the constituents of normal urine. The quantity of sugar contained can be increased by a condition of alimentary glycosuria. But, when there is no such artificial cause, and yet the sugar is recognizable, without the ordinary rÉgime of life being altered, still its presence is no symptom of a pathological process going on. Even the continuation of the insignificant excretion of sugar, when it continues for many years, appears to exercise no influence over the health. But as one finds many individuals in whose urine not even the minimum quantity of sugar is discoverable, it seems not improbable that in a perfectly normal condition of the organism it is possible for many individuals completely to burn up the whole of the carbo-hydrates either taken into the organism or formed within it. Such persons, in consequence of their metabolism being normal, are able to carry out the process of combustion to the full, and their excretions are of such a nature as should represent the normal processes.

But, if this condition of the excretions cannot be attained in a given individual in the desired degree, the organism is suffering from an imperfection that occurs in a normal manner (an excretion of sugar) to a certain degree and extent, such as the physiological potentialities of a living organism permit.

In one connection only, in which it afforded me practical assistance for my observations, this question has not yet been fully elucidated. Sex had not been taken into consideration during the examination of the excretion of sugar within normal physiological bounds. Whilst I was looking through the experiments of the specialists whom I have mentioned, it struck me that most of the inquiries respecting the presence of sugar in normal urine had been made in the case of men alone, and that, so far as regarded the presence of sugar, the urine of the human female had been little observed, and never quantitatively and qualitatively compared with that of man. Nicolai Ivanoff, in his dissertation (Dorpat) on the question of glycosuria in the case of pregnant women, lying-in women, and suckling women, arrived at the following final results: “A physiological glycosuria in the case of the pregnant, or of those who are lying in, has, so far as present investigations have gone, never been established, and certainly not to the extent which Blot asserts. Sugar occurs in human urine more frequently than has been hitherto supposed, but absolutely never in constant and increased quantities in that of pregnant and lying-in women.”

If, however, it has been in many cases asserted that there was an increased quantity of sugar in the urine of pregnant and lying-in women, and that this has been proved, these statements have originated from mistaking for a previously developed sugar one which has during the experiments come into existence from the action of alkalies and acids on an extractive substance which requires further examination.

For the detection of sugar in the urine several methods exist, which are more or less sensitive.

If we mix a few cubic centimetres of urine with an equal quantity of 10 per cent. solution of caustic potash, and warm a portion of this in a test-tube, we observe that the fluid in the event of a sensible quantity of sugar being present, acquires a color varying from dark yellow to yellowish brown. We can most easily assure ourselves of this if we warm only the upper part of the fluid contained in the test-tube, whereupon the upper part of the fluid will appear darker than the rest.

This test will give a distinct result only in presence of a minimum of 1 per cent. of sugar.

A much more sensitive test consists in the reduction of a salt of bismuth in an alkaline solution of urine sugar. This test, given by BÖttcher, was modified in the following manner by Nylander. Four grammes of Seignette salts are dissolved in 100 cubic centimetres of soda lye of the sp. gr. 1.119, and 2 grammes of bismuth subnitrite are added to the fluid warmed in a water-bath. This solution represents Nylander’s reagent.

In order to use the test we mix five cubic centimetres of the urine to be examined (which, if possible, ought not to have a specific gravity higher than 1.020) with 0.5 cubic centimetre of Nylander’s reagent in a test-tube. The mixture is now boiled for two minutes. If more than 0.5 per cent. of sugar is present in the urine, the originally white precipitate of earthy phosphates becomes deep black; with 0.05 per cent. of sugar it shows a clear, brown color.

If this test is not the most sensitive of all, it provides us with a process for recognizing sugar in the urine, and not a number of other reducing substances mixed with it. (Neumeister.)

Amongst the various tests for sugar used in practice, that of Trommer is one of the most common.

We mix some 5 cubic centimetres of urine with an equal volume of 10 per cent. solution of potash or soda, and add to the mixture, drop by drop, a 10 per cent. solution of sulphate of copper, so long as the resulting hydrated oxide of copper is dissolved by the sugar.

In this way we get, according to the quantity of sugar contained, a more or less ultramarine-blue fluid. If we warm this, the result, in consequence of the reducing action, is a reddish-yellow precipitate of hydrated suboxide of copper which, after a short time, adheres to the sides of the test-tube, somewhat in the fashion of a mirror.

This test can be applied fairly simply, and it gives good results in presence of more than 0.5 per cent. of sugar. But at the same time we cannot use it to detect extremely minute quantities of sugar such as normally occur in human urine, because the urine, as we have already remarked, contains a number of substances which reduce alkaline solutions of copper.

The effect of these substances is sometimes such as to produce the illusion that from 0.3 to 0.5 per cent. of saccharine matter is present. (Neumeister.)

In recent times, for qualitative and quantitative investigation of the grape-sugar, much use has been made of graduated fermentation-tubes.

For this experiment we mix about 10 cubic centimetres of urine with a small quantity of yeast of ascertained weight, and fill the fermentation-tube with the mixture. After the lapse of twenty-four hours, during which the whole is kept in an incubator at a temperature of 30° centigrade, all the grape-sugar will be completely fermented.

From the gaseous fermentation-products of the grape-sugar, which rise into the longer branch of the U-tube, and consist of carbonic acid, we detect the presence of sugar in the urine.

By means of the graduation of the longer branch, we can at once read off the percentage of the sugar. This test is sensitive enough to detect 0.05 per cent. of sugar. It is useful first of all to boil the urine to be tested, in order to remove from it the carbonic acid contained in solution. It is also advantageous to acidify the urine, so that the yeast fungus which flourishes more easily in the acid medium may overpower any gas-producing bacteria, and so avoid a false result.

In 1884, E. Fischer discovered phenylhydrazin, and pointed out the fact that it might be used as a valuable reagent for the sugar in urine.

This preparation has the characteristic peculiarity of forming crystalline compounds with aldehydes and ketones. These crystals, in the cases of the different kinds of sugar, which, as is known, represent the aldehydes and ketones, respectively, are needle-shaped, of a yellow color, with difficulty soluble in water, have a high melting-point, and are called glycosazone.

Jaksch used this property of phenylhydrazin for his phenylhydrazin test. For this experiment he dilutes the urine with an equal quantity of distilled water in a test-tube, and adds twice as much phenylhydrazin hydrochloride as can be taken up on the end of a knife, and double that quantity of sodium acetate. The mixture is well shaken together and left from half an hour to an hour in a boiling water-bath.

Then, if the test-tube and its contents be slowly cooled, at the end of about twelve hours the sediment is found to consist partly of spherical resinous lumps, and partly of microscopical tuft-shaped crystals.

These crystals are nothing else than glycosazone-compounds. (Moritz.) In normal urine this reaction is very often observed as distinctly evident as if we had to do with a urine containing as much as 1 to 2 per cent. of sugar.

In reality besides the extremely minute traces of grape-sugar, a whole number of aldehydes and ketones are present in urine, which can form phenylazone.

Amidst all these substances those which, according to the investigations of FlÜckiger chiefly interfere with these tests are the glycuronic acid compounds, as they give crystals of the same form in the course of the reaction. FlÜckiger detected these compounds by their property of rotating the polarization-plane to the left, and reducing alkaline solutions of copper after long boiling. More accurate investigations enabled him to identify these substances with acetone compounds.

Moritz recommends the following method of discovering whether we have to deal with grape-sugar, glycuronic acid compounds, or other (azone) crystal-forming substances.

Several litres of normal urine are precipitated with lead chloride and filtered; the filtrate is precipitated with ammonia and again filtered; the residue on the filter is washed and then dried on a clay slab. It is after this decomposed with oxalic acid, mixed with acetate of lead in excess, and the filtrate is deprived of its lead by hydrosulphuric acid. As a result is obtained a perfectly clear fluid to which the phenylhydrazin test described above is applied.

The precipitate obtained is filtered off, repeatedly washed with chloroform and alcohol, several times crystallized, and finally the melting-point of the needle-shaped crystals, which can be seen with the naked eye, determined. If sugar is present, the melting-point of the crystals will be at a temperature of 205° centigrade. If the melting-point lies below this temperature, we have to do with other substances (azones).

Hence it appears that we possess in the phenylhydrazin test, applied in the manner above described, a certain method of detecting even the faintest traces of sugar in the urine.

Although hitherto it has been often ascertained that sugar was present in normal urine, that was demonstrated only by the other methods with which we have been hitherto acquainted, and not by means of the phenylhydrazin test in the manner in which we have explained its use. This seems to have been the reason why different authors have not been able to speak unanimously on this subject.

It frequently happens that the sugar is present in such quantities that we are able to observe its power to rotate the plane of polarized light.

For this purpose we generally use Soleil-Ventzke’s penumbra-polarization apparatus, a description of which will be found in the hand-books on the subject.

This apparatus suffices to investigate the dextro-rotatory and lÆvo-rotatory substances in the urine. With its assistance it is also possible to determine the quantity of sugar in the urine. In addition for the determination of the quantity of sugar in the urine a number of chemical processes can be employed, such, for instance, as Fehling’s method with Worm-MÜller’s modification, Knapp’s method, and various others.

If we add to normal urine a dilute solution of potassium permanganate it at once loses its color. From this we perceive that the urine contains a great quantity of oxidizable or so-called reducing substances.

It has been already mentioned that Trommer’s test gives positive results after protracted boiling, even in the case of normal urine, without any corresponding quantity of grape-sugar being present. In this case the reducing substances interfere with the test in consequence of their tendency to become oxidized.

We find a number of them in the urine. Foremost among them are uric acid, creatinine, and the coloring-matter. Also the substances mentioned above in the description of the carbo-hydrates have reducing properties.

Different statements have been made as to the quantity of reducing substances existing in the urine. According to FlÜckiger they form from 0.15 to 0.25 per cent.; according to Salkowski an average of 0.4 per cent., and according to Munk an average of 0.3 per cent.

Moritz found the quantity of reducing substances range between 2.93 and 4.1 grammes per diem in a grown man. His investigations were made with the collected urine of 24 hours, and were applied to that of men, women, and children. The result showed that men always excreted a greater quantity of reducing substances than women of the same age who used the same food.

The quantity of these substances depends upon the food taken. An increase is also possible when certain benzoin compounds are taken into the system. Moritz also found that the ratio of the quantity of reducing substances to the food was a constant, which is the case also with the nitrogen evacuated. An increase of the daily excretion of reducing substances follows the free use of albumen.

If, in the case of an ordinary diet, such as men take in youth, the body performs its labors without fatigue, it must be assumed that the several food stuffs have been selected from the classes of albuminous bodies, carbo-hydrates, fats, and inorganic elements in suitable portions and are provided in sufficient quantity.

According to the statements of Pettenkofer and Voit the total metabolism is greater during labor than during rest. The food requisite for a normal grown man while in a state of rest may be reckoned at 30 units of heat for each kilogramme of weight. In the case of a full-grown working man, whose weight was 70 kilogrammes, the necessary food represented about 2,000 units of heat. For a person whom we, following Voit, will describe as an average working man, the requisite food supply consists of 118 grammes of albumen, 56 grammes of fat, and 500 grammes of carbo-hydrates, equivalent to 3,055 units of heat gross, or 2,749 units of heat net.

As a woman is generally smaller than a man, and the weight of her body also less in comparison with his, and her labor also less than that of a man, if we compare men and women of the same age, it is obvious that in her case a less provision of force, and in consequence less food, under similar circumstances, is necessary than for the man. Voit assigns to a working woman a food supply of 94 grammes albumen, 45 grammes fat, and 400 grammes carbo-hydrates, which correspond to 2,444 units of heat gross, and 2,200 units of heat net, whilst the whole of the food taken by an average working man, according to Voit, is fixed at 118 grammes albumen, 56 grammes fat, 500 grammes carbo-hydrates, equivalent to 3,035 units of weight gross, and 2,749 units of weight net.

Many consider that the quantity of albumen is placed too high. For this reason Munk assigns a lower quantity of albumen for the food. Yet the numbers which he gives do not vary much from those of Voit.

In youth several very marked differences appear in the metabolism, and especially in the quantity of carbonic acid given off, and these differences appear in both sexes. (Tiegerstedt.)

In the case of a male individual from fourteen to nineteen, the quantity of carbonic acid given off is greater than in the case of those who are younger or older of the same sex. During the same years, also, a more rapid increase of weight takes place, and a marked increase in height. This shows an increased metabolism, which is occasioned by the greater addition of substance to the body.

In the case of the female individual this increased excretion of carbonic acid does not occur at the same age. A girl of eleven gives off nearly the same quantity of carbonic acid as a grown woman.

The quantity of carbonic acid given off by both sexes shows that, at like ages and under like circumstances, the quantity given off by men in their younger years is considerably greater than that given off by women.

When the time of the increase of the body is completed, at the end of the period of growth, with both sexes there is little difference between the ingesta and the egesta. The difference also between the sexes is much less, and in advanced life completely vanishes.

It will be seen from the above brief statements respecting metabolism in both sexes that a difference is perceptible, and this implies the possibility of carrying out an attempt to express that difference numerically. It would lead us too far were we here to set forth all the consequences connected with these facts in the case of both sexes, with reference to growth, physical condition, etc. These are sufficiently known from the data given in other technical works which treat of the characteristic differences between man and woman in different ages.

I shall here call attention to one peculiarity only of the human female, which is this, that the female organism, in consequence of the less abundant formation of tissue, is on a smaller scale than that of the male, and yet the amount of sugar given off in the urine is, under normal circumstances, nearly the same in quantity as in the case of the male.

Where there is less abundant formation of tissue there must be evidently less strength. Consequently a weakness in the organism, such as is present where we find the normal excretion of sugar, will have a more marked influence upon the work done than a greater weakness of the same kind would have where the mass of the body was greater and the matter taken for combustion greater also. In other words, the sugar excreted in a normal way in the urine of the man does not indicate so significant a loss of the heat produced by combustion as it indicates in the case of the woman.

When, in addition to this, a woman is in the earlier period of her life, at which time an ovulation takes place regularly every month, it is not a matter of indifference whether a good and complete use is being made or not being made of the matter taken as nourishment.

Also, though the excretion of sugar in insignificant quantities in a normal way is not detrimental to the whole organism, yet it appears, as we shall see presently, not to be a matter of indifference as regards the ovum forming itself and ripening in the human female.

Now, if we take further into consideration the observation which I made many years ago, that sugar often occurs in the urine of women, and also in larger quantities than we observe in the case of men, it is obvious that this symptom ought to arrest our attention. Certainly we often meet with female urine which shows us clearly that the process of combustion in the organism in question is being perfectly effected. Practically in such urine no sugar is detected by the reactions which have been mentioned above, not even by the phenylhydrazin test. Yet, in the case of many of these women, although no change has been made in the diet, sugar is found in the urine temporarily in inconsiderable quantities shortly before and shortly after menstruation. The methods of investigation which we have applied gave at these epochs a positive result.

The appearance of sugar in the urine does not occur only amongst women of the upper classes, who enjoy a better and varied diet, but also amongst those of the poorer classes, who are obliged to subsist chiefly upon vegetable food.

Indeed, in the case of vegetarians who take concentrated albuminous substances only in the form in which they occur in eggs, and get animal fat and sugar from milk alone, the urine, as regards the occurrence of sugar, is of the same character as that of those who do not adhere to vegetarianism. Women, who, in other climes, are not within the reach of our investigations, might also be included in the same category so far as their diet is concerned.

It follows that the individual does not excrete sugar only in consequence of the character of the diet, but that the processes of combustion manifest themselves in the results derived from the digestion of the different nutriments.

Now, an indispensable condition of the ripening of the ovum in the female organism is that the metabolic process shall be normal. When these changes are being effected as perfectly as possible, sugar is entirely absent from the urine. The female individual may have arranged and chosen her diet from the different groups of food in any conceivable way, and she may belong to this or that class of the community, but the metabolic processes—that is to say, the combustion processes—are, nevertheless, those which deserve most attention in connection with the development of the ovum.

Ovulation is never in any case altogether independent of the influences of diet and metabolism. In those cases where the combustion is of such a kind that unoxidized remains of bodies still capable of producing heat are found in the urine, the ovum in process of development in the human female is never so highly developed as in the cases where no sugar, or at least no recognizable trace of it, can be found in the urine.

In the first case we shall have not only a less ripe ovum, but very likely also a less well-nourished ovum. An ovum of this sort has not so fully attained to all the characteristics and powers inherent in its protoplasm, and, in consequence, seems fitted to develop only a female individual. In such an ovum the several cell-products of the ovum, which have to develop themselves into the future embryo, will be arranged for the growth of a female. Not only will female organs of generation be developed from it, but also all the elements of the future individual will be feminine.

On the contrary, if in the mother-individual all the substances developed in, or taken into, the organism undergo combustion in such a manner that no sugar is found in the urine, not even in the smallest quantities, then an ovum can be developed such as is required to produce a male individual. Out of its protoplasm in the course of evolution elements form themselves, whence male cells are developed, which correspond to the development of tissues and forms of the male individual. Some of the cells—viz.: those which ultimately become the elements for the continuation of the species, are planned for the male sex.

It follows from all this that the result depends to a great extent both upon the diet chosen, and upon whether it has been rightly chosen to suit the organism, whether it is possible to exert such an influence as may so support the ovum in its maturation that in its development it may form itself into a male individual. It must be observed in advance that such an influence as may be effective for the production of sex must not be applied to an already fertilized ovum, but must be applied to an ovum in development before its fertilization.

Indeed, it is even of greater importance to know that the mother individual has been for a considerable period anterior to the fertilization of the ovum provided with the requisite food. Care must also be taken that after conception a similar befitting diet is continued for the mother, which diet should resemble that previously provided.

Of what sort must the chosen diet be which can favor the ripening of the ovum? Always only such a diet as can so modify the process of food assimilation in the organism that no excretion even of the most minute quantity of sugar discoverable by the application of the phenylhydrazin test can be detected.

The quantity of sugar is small, but what has to be taken into consideration here is not so much the amount of the sugar, as the fact that this substance is being excreted.

Now, it has been proved by experience that when in an organism a symptom appears, as the evidence of disease, in the form of a considerable excretion of sugar in the urine, it is in many cases possible, by the means of fitting diet, to produce a diminution of the excretion of sugar, either bringing it down to a small amount or causing it to disappear altogether.

Investigation of the urine according to recognized methods must accompany this system of diet, and, under normal circumstances, we soon meet with the phenomenon, at which we have been aiming—that the quantity of sugar has diminished to a no longer perceptible amount. When this has been attained, it may be presumed that, by a further perseverance with the same diet, the metabolism will be so regulated that, if no pathological accident supervenes, the excretion of sugar will cease. In fact, in consequence of an alteration of diet and the taking of no excessive quantities of starch and sugar, the excretion of sugar in the urine ceases for a considerable time, and only makes its reappearance after a long interval.

When, in consequence of having observed the minute normal quantity of sugar in the urine, my attention was attracted to the fact that the determination of the future sex was connected with the presence of this sugar, my endeavors were directed to exercising such an influence over its presence as might enable me to get rid of it. Experiments with the most diverse diets gave me in the case of women most remarkable results. In this way I found women, using an almost exclusively flesh diet (which was, of course, especially rich in nitrogen), whose urine showed greater quantities of sugar—according to approximate estimations—than when they used a diet of carbo-hydrates, that is, sugar, fatty substances, alcohols, etc. Others, again, showed an exactly opposite result. In many cases I did not succeed in getting rid of the normal sugar in the urine; in others it disappeared soon after the beginning of the treatment. It follows that, in every case where the question is one of so influencing the sex that a male offspring may be obtained, the very first thing to be determined is whether the normal quantity of sugar is present in the woman’s urine or not. If none can be detected after repeated and painstaking search, and if reducing substances are plentifully present, we do not require to arrange the diet, but can recommend immediate impregnation, as every probability points to a male embryo. But in all cases where the normal “urine-sugar”—if I may so call it—is present, even if only traces of it are to be found, it will then be our task, by various alterations of diet, to discover that one which seems suited to the organism in such a way that it will occasion the disappearance of every trace of the “urine-sugar.” In these experiments the remarkable phenomenon is observable, that the reducing substances which I have already mentioned, and amongst these especially the lÆvo-rotatory glycuronic acid compounds, show alterations in respect of quantity.

In fact, I found that the urine of most women who had male offspring contained, during the first months of pregnancy, more reducing substances than the urine of women who had female offspring. It is, therefore, also necessary that the diet should not only occasion a disappearance of the normal urine-sugar, but should also produce an increase of the reducing substances. This end can be accomplished certainly also by the use of different medicines, such as chloroform, turpentine, salicylic acid, etc. But, apart from the fact that medicinal influences are distinctly to be discouraged, these substances do not seem to produce the same effects as diet. Besides, it is still a question of what kind these efficient substances are. And another question is whether they are themselves effective. It will be sufficient for us to recognize them as a symptom.

It is known that the male sex possesses a distinctly greater amount of albumen than the female. In age this difference disappears; in youth it is greater. It might be expected that male offspring would result, in consequence of a more albuminous diet, by which a greater increment of albumen would be made possible; the thing, however, is not quite so simple as this. Investigations in various cases showed me that women in whom an increased amount of albumen could be detected, but in whom either sugar was present to a small extent, or, on the other hand, only very small quantities of reducing substances could be detected, almost always had female offspring.

In spite of many endeavors to elucidate this phenomenon, I was forced to have recourse to the symptoms alone, and to hope for the production of the male sex only from the disappearance of the sugar and the increase of the reducing substances. Certainly, further investigations showed that the same diet which was the most favorable to the production of the condition which I have named (the disappearance of the sugar from the urine and the simultaneous increase of the reducing substances), also effected the best albuminous increment in the body. Key’s statements teach us that male individuals put on more albumen than females, and that this is especially the case during the period of growth. Very likely the male embryo also requires a greater amount of albumen than the female, in the same way as this difference exists between the boy and girl.

We know as a universal rule that where there is rest there must be a balance of forces. If the ovum, the accumulator of the balanced forces in a state of rest, is to divide itself so as to produce in this way the future individual, some stimulant impulse, some energy is absolutely necessary to disturb the balance of forces, and to induce the development of the cells. This impulse may be such a one as occasions destruction. But it may also be one that gives occasion to new growth, to tissue formation. (W. Haacke.) We must describe this impulse as functional, and recognize in it a peculiarity which belongs to the organic world alone, the vegetable and animal kingdom. Every movement, every use of an organ, may serve as a stimulant impulse, and contribute to its development. Thus we find, in the case of great thinkers and poets, of celebrated generals, etc., a powerfully developed brain. Oarsmen, gymnasts, and swimmers have far stronger muscles than men who follow less fatiguing callings. In all these cases there are impulses leading to increased growth of the organs. In the growth of the fertilized ovum we have to deal again with a phenomenon of impulse, a part of which is the property of the ovum itself, a part, however, also dependent upon external influences. We call the former autoplastic, the latter xenoplastic impulse. (Haacke.) It is easy to understand that a purely autoplastic development (eine reine Autoplasie, a pure autoplasia) cannot exist. Out of an ovum alone, without the agency of new impulses, without the taking up of new matter, no new individual could develop.

The stomach furnishes the gastric juice. It is stimulated to do so by the food. The food is digested, undergoes absorption in the intestine, and becomes lymph. Blood is formed. The blood passes through the several organs and tissues, nourishes them, and replaces the substances used up by work. As soon, therefore, as the stomach and intestine, with the intestinal glands, fail in their functions, all the organs, which stand in physical relation with them, suffer; because they are constantly during their work consuming matter, and are now receiving no fresh supplies. The case of the other juices of the body is the same. The thyroid glands supply the body with a principle without which a person cannot be in a normal condition. Similarly the testicles, as glands, supply the body with a principle the want of which gives a man distinctly female qualities, as we perceive in the case of eunuchs.

There is no doubt that the males and females of a race of animals develop out of the same germinal-matter. Its development depends upon two important factors, the impulse, and the capacity to take up matter conditioned thereby. By taking up matter the substance of the newly developed cells is increased, and this in turn prompts them to repeated division, until at last an organ is developed. The new organ again furnishes new impulses, and so influences the development of other organs. The impulses are of themselves physical and chemical. (Haacke.) In the ovule and the embryo the impulses are what chiefly bring about new growth. These impulses the ovum receives from the mother whose product it is. Now, as of the most different impulses now one and now another comes to the front, the embryo will acquire at this time rather these qualities, and at that time those. The impulse will occasion now a greater addition of matter to this organ, and now a greater addition of matter to that. According to observations made up to the present time, there is hardly any doubt that the development of the organs of sex requires an impulse as does the development of all the other organs. These sex-determining impulses originate, like the other development-determining influences, from the mother, since it is she that supplies to the embryo, as agencies of impulse, the juices derived from the food which she has taken. In addition to these, the embryo receives also from the mother such products as are required for the growth that follows the impulse. If the mother gives the child no material for growth and no impulse, then the child, since it is dependent upon the mother, must perish. Now, according as a developing ovum or an embryo either receives the juice, the means of impulse, for the acquisition of the male sex, or for the acquisition of the female sex, so will a male or a female result.

Of what kind the means of impulse are, the juices are, which occasion this I do not know. I can only supply the conditions requisite for them; I can see only whether they are present. And so I again come back to this, that we may expect a male individual from the ovum when the juices are developed which serve as a functional means of impulse for the male sex. These juices can come into existence in the organism under the most different circumstances. But they certainly do come into existence, if we can so feed the mother that we cannot find in her urine even the faintest trace of sugar, but instead of it an increased excretion of reducing substances, accompanied by a relatively high exchange of nitrogenous substances. These facts can, therefore, serve us only as a symptom of processes taking place in the organism. In consequence our task will be to follow up in the various cases the conditions of this symptom, in order that we may try so to feed the mother individual that she may attain to giving the effective impulse; and this we have certainly accomplished by the increased excretion of the reducing substances and the disappearance of the normal urine-sugar.

When we have brought a woman into such a condition that she excretes no sugar, and by the continuation of the same diet keep her permanently in that condition, the ovule which is being developed in her organism will develop itself correspondingly. Also with this diet the different qualities of the organism may not be altogether without influence on the course of the ovum’s development.

In many cases the quantity of sugar in the urine excreted does not diminish. The most different kinds of diet may be tried, and yet the phenylhydrazin test will always show the presence of sugar. Individuals of this sort exhibit a certain obstinacy in resisting the attempt to procure an alteration of the metabolism. In such cases no influence has been exerted over the development of the ovum.

In these experiments which are made with the mother, not only is the ovum influenced which is being developed for fertilization in the maternal organism, but it is also possible for the mother herself, in consequence of the alteration of diet, to experience many changes with regard to the physical peculiarities of the elements which compose her body.

The treatment may prove highly beneficial to the mother herself, so that not ovulation alone is subjected to an alteration, but the activity of the processes of the tissues of the other organs of the body may be also simultaneously in some way changed. And here may come into consideration many other factors which may produce a particular fitness for procreation and for the development of the ovum, and, if they once make themselves felt, may be of the greatest advantage to the mother.

The formation of the insignificant quantity of sugar in the body goes on of itself regularly, without it being possible to perceive any consequent striking alterations in the organism. The manner in which sugar is formed in the body under normal conditions has in recent years been thus explained.

The sugar contained in the blood in healthy persons is reckoned as not higher than about 0.15 per cent. In those who suffer from diabetes it may rise to 0.44 per cent. If sugar is present in the blood, that it passes thence into the urine can be easily explained, seeing that the excreted products of decomposition from the blood pass into the urine. Thus the sugar results from a portion of the food which is transformed into sugar, and so passes into the portal vein. (StrÜmpell.)

There exists also in the liver and muscles a non-nitrogenous substance, glycogen, which is detected also in other organs. This glycogen probably arises partly from the carbo-hydrates of the food, but certainly from the albuminous substances taken with the food, which, when broken up, separate into nitrogenous products and glycogen.

When the glycogen is once formed, we may regard it as an intermediate substance which is changed into sugar, probably by a saccharine fermentation, and then can reach the blood. How glycogen is transformed into sugar within the organism is unknown. Normally occurring sugar results from glycogen.

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