Samuel Leopold Schenk

“ As soon as some of the cells derived from the primary protoplasm of the ovum have developed themselves into genital cells, the other elements which have originated from the same ovum are in such a manner conditioned that, in the latter stages of their vitality, they adapt themselves, and, in short, adapt the properties inherent in all the cells, to the sex of the individual. According, as the ovum is male or female, so are also the cells which originate from it either all male or all female. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Bad harvest years are those which favor a flesh diet, as the food-stuffs from the vegetable kingdom do not suffice for the cattle, nor for the people either; in consequence of which the cattle are killed, and more flesh enters into the diet of the women who are fructified. If people in general had the normal aptness for procreation in such famine years, the flesh-diet might turn the scale in favor of the male sex; it being presupposed that the other conditions were fulfilled.
If Thury’s law be considered, Thury also held the ripeness of the ovum to be of importance for male or female ova. ”

“ People have, in consequence, been induced to fall back upon theories of different sorts, theories which have for varying periods, sometimes long, sometimes short, been accepted as of some assistance towards a scientific explanation. In all the theories which have been propounded, the sex has been regarded as already determined in the ovum, or else the origin of the sex has been assigned to some early stage of the development. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the dieting of a woman in the way we recommend is practicable and of definite effect upon the development of the future sex, we arrive at a conclusion which may be summed up as follows:—If a woman be dieted according to our method, she can reach a stage in which she becomes sexually superior to the man, and her offspring will then be male, in accordance with the law of the cross-heredity of sex. ”

“ The germ develops itself, and, in the case of creatures whose ova develop without fertilization, evolves one, or the other, or both of the sexes. According to Pagenstecher, fertilization often alters the determination of the sex of the germs which attain to development in the ova. The point of time in the life of an ovum, at which it has reached that degree of ripeness which gives it such a character that the semen can no longer affect the determination of the sex, cannot be absolutely settled. A more powerful bull might beget female calves earlier in the late rutting time than an older one. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A ripe, fertilizable ovum in the ovary of a woman whose urine habitually contains sugar has a tendency, when the proper conditions are supplied, to develop into a female. In consequence, it is in such cases from the outset possible, without exercising any influence over the mother, without adopting any diet, to anticipate after a conception, the birth of a female individual. But if these conditions do not exist, if no sugar can be detected in the urine, the use of the same influence in order to obtain a male individual is still not superfluous. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the ovule of a human female, dieted in this way, becomes fertilized, it has been so far ripened by the process of nutrition conducted in the organism of the mother, that when it attains the stage of development, it resolves itself into cells which compose an organism containing male characteristics. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In this experiment on the evolution of sex it appeared that not only was there an excessive production of females, but that the other organs of [70] the embryo and its whole constitution could be modified by means of nutrition. It is also to be observed respecting this most interesting experiment that many of the tadpoles perished of hunger. Now, the number of still-born males of the human species very much exceeds the number of still-born girls. The mortality amongst males is so great that the average is from 136 to 140 still-born boys to 100 still-born girls. ”

“ The connection of the development of sex with an imperfect physiological combustion of the food can only be considered as demonstrated, if it is possible, by means of certain exact experiments in this direction to reach results which incontestably make for the possibility of influencing sex. ”

“ In Ploss’s work ‘Das Weib in der Natur and Völkerkunde’ (Woman in Nature and Popular Tradition) , are to be found the various speculations of different races respecting the origin of sex. Much of this folk-lore is of a distinctly surprising character, and calculated to afford the reader considerable amusement. For example, in Servia, if a man has a stye on his eyelid he comes to the conclusion that his aunt is pregnant. If the stye is on the upper eyelid, the child will be a male, if on the lower, a female. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The procreative elements, furnished by the male and female organs, after their mixture, compete with each other, by virtue of their inherent forces, for the mastery. In this conflict, if the male molecules are the more numerous, a male results. On the contrary, if the female molecules are more numerous, the result is a female. Nicholaus Venette ascribes the difference of sex to the earliest phases of the life of the ovule. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The following aspect of the origin of sex is not without interest, although the theory rests on somewhat insufficient foundations, and is applicable, in the first instance, only [31] to those creatures which produce but a single individual at a birth. Many creatures, and especially certain species of birds, present this phenomenon; they lay in a single month two eggs. Of these, one is male, the other female. In this way a provision is made for the equal increase, in each respective month, of both sexes. ”

“ The human female, if we regard the general statistical data, ought to bring forth approximately the same number of male and female individuals. If we find so remarkable an excess in the direction either of males or females, that six or seven of the same sex follow one another, there must be a reason for this. In my opinion that cause is now to be ascertained only from the results of analysis of the urine for sugar, mentioned above. ”

“ Our author only partly supports Thury’s theory, and considers it an open question whether the time of impregnation has any influence on the origin of sex. But he lays down this principle, that an economy of the semen by infrequent indulgence in [116] intercourse is extremely favorable to the production of males.
It may be possible to obtain more exact data respecting the origin of sex from the artificial breeding of fish. In this case the properties of the sperm, as well as of the ova, might be observed at an earlier date by means of a fertilization effected externally. ”

“ If at the time of rutting a single ovum is detached from the ovary, and descends slowly through the genital canal (animals which bear a single offspring) , fertilization taking place at the beginning of the rutting suffices to produce a female, and at the end of the rutting to produce a male, provided that the change in the condition of the ovum takes place normally during its passage through the genital canal. ”

“ 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 author clings firmly to his theory that each testicle possesses its own special spermatozoa and each ovary its special ova, in which a given sex is already in existence, and from which in fruitful intercourse male or female individuals originate. ”