Abstract
MAN KIND has always been intrigued by the problem of what are the factors that determine sex, but it is only comparatively recently that a real light has been thrown upon this subject. The influence of the sex glands upon certain characteristics of the body has, it is true, been known for many centuries, as witnessed by the effects of castration, but the mechanism by which these changes are produced was obscure. With the discovery by Oliver and Schäfer in 1894 of the effects of suprarenal extracts upon blood pressure, a mechanism by which one part of the body may. influence another (other than that involved in the intervention of the nervous system) was suggested, and experiments have shown that the action which the sex glands exert upon the body generally must be due to a substance or substances—“hormones “in fact, or chemical messengers-circulating in the blood stream. Thus removal of the test?s or ovaries from their normal position to another part of the body produces no alteration of bodily appearance, although all nervous connexions must necessarily have been severed. Complete extirpation of both glands, however; leads to disappearance of those characters which are correlated with sex and are known as the secondary sex characteristics.
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Sex Determination. Nature 114, 804 (1924). https://doi.org/10.1038/114804a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/114804a0