Sex organ

“ It is important to know the size, structure and location of an organ, but it is still more important to know its function; in other words, for our purpose it is more important to know the physiology than the anatomy of the sex organs.
SUBCHAPTER A FUNCTION OF THE OVARIES
Like the testicles in man, so the ovaries in woman are the essential sexual organs. They are the fundamental organs, without which the other sexual [50] organs are useless. Also like the testicles in man, the ovaries have two distinct functions, manufacturing two distinct substances. One function is to manufacture eggs ”

“ The period of their development, the influence of such development on the entire nutrition of the body, the irregularities of nutritive or of cerebro-spinal action, that may be caused by irregularities in such development, are also completely analogous. It is only the organ of gestation that is peculiar to the female—the organ of maternity—the function that, although resulting from sex, transcends sex and belongs to the race. In a double sense is the uterus secondary to the ovaries. ”

“ And the fact that it is possible for a woman to realize this wish by the same sensation as a man does, will not mislead anyone acquainted with anatomy. There is a small organ in the genitals of a woman similar to that of the male, and this small organ, the clitoris, even in childhood, and in the years before sexual intercourse, plays the same role as does the large organ of the male.
To the less comprehensible male sex-symbols belong certain reptiles and fish, notably the famous symbol of the snake. ”

“ The female sex organs, also called the reproductive or generative organs, are divided into internal and external. The internal are the most important and consist of: the ovaries, Fallopian tubes, uterus [34] or womb, and vagina. The external sex organs of the female are: the vulva, hymen, and clitoris. Among the external organs are also generally included the mons Veneris and the breasts or mammary glands. ”

“ Some authorities think that "every cell in the body is an organ of internal secretion", [2] and that thus each influences all the others. The sex glands are especially important as endocrine organs; in fact the somatic cells are organized around the germ cells, as pointed out above. Hence the sex glands may be considered as the keys or central factors in the two chemical systems, the male and the female type. ”

“ As a corollary to the above, it is necessary to know that each human being (and also each higher animal) starts out with the potential sex organs of both sexes, and that each individual becomes sexually differentiated at about the eleventh week of intra-uterine life. Moreover every male has female organs, and every female has male organs, though in the normal conditions these are mere vestiges and play no part in the sex life of the person. ”

“ Changes in the reproductive system.—About the close of the change of life in a woman, the ovaries become reduced in size, the walls of the womb thinner and smaller in size and the vagina undergoes a similar change. Similar changes occur in the sexual organs of the male.
Sex problems explained.—As already observed, sexual desire begins to abate with the approach of the change of life in both sexes. If this does not occur, it shows an abnormal sexual condition, or some aggravating cause in some neighboring organ. Occasionally all desire ceases in the woman at the beginning of the period. ”

“ The development of reproductive cells in special glandular apparatus at the period of puberty, is evidently not peculiar to one sex, but is a physiological fact necessarily common to both. The peculiarity in the female consists in the greater degree of periodicity in the complete development of such cells, in the periodical congestions of a secondary organ, the uterus, and in the loss of blood effected by these. ”

“ If, as physiology has already proved is the case, the internal absorption of secretions from the sex organs plays so large a part in determining the health and character of remote parts of the body, it is extremely likely that the highly stimulating secretion of man's semen can and does penetrate and affect the woman's whole organism. ”

“ The Internal Sex Organs—The Ovaries—The Fallopian Tubes—The Uterus—The Divisions of the Uterus—Anteversion, Anteflexion, Retroversion, Retroflexion, of the Uterus—Endometritis—The Vagina—The Hymen—Imperforate Hymen—The External Genitals—The Vulva, Labia Majora, Labia Minora, the Mons Veneris, the Clitoris, the Urethra—The Breasts—The Pelvis—The Difference Between the Male and Female Pelvis.
The organs which primarily distinguish one sex from the other are the sex organs. ”

“ Without the Ovaries there would be no ova or eggs, and without the ova there would be possible no reproductive purposes, and therefore no office for the sex organs at all, for reproduction is the fundamental office, function, and purpose of the entire sexual organism. ”

“ Nature provides these chemical secretions from the Ovaries for the purpose of giving the woman her characteristic physical form and contour, her form, her breasts, her long hair, her broad pelvis, her soft voice, and other secondary sex characteristics; and also of providing for the normal development of the other sex organs. As a proof of this statement, science shows us that if a woman's ovaries are completely removed there is usually a consequent atrophy or "drying up" of the Uterus and the Vagina, and often even of the Vulva. ”

“ Every woman should be given plain, practical, sane, sensible instruction concerning the sex organism of woman, its functions, its laws, its use, and its abuse. This important feature of the physical organism plays an all powerful part in the life of every woman, and particularly in the life of the married woman. It is nature's mechanism for the reproduction of the race. Every child that is born into the world is conceived, gestated, and finally delivered as a result of the functioning of this organism. ”

“ There is a constant internal secretion from the testicles of a man just as from the ovaries of a woman, and it has the same beneficial effect on the whole being. It makes a boy what we call manly or virile. The value of the internal secretions of the sex organs in both boys and girls is so great that for that reason, if for no other, the whole sex machinery must be kept in perfect health. ”

“ The growth of organs and structures so remote from the sex-organs, as, e.g., the larynx, have been found to be influenced by the chemical stimulus of secretions from the sex-organs and their subsidiary glands. These secretions are not passed out through external ducts but enter the blood system directly. Such secretions passing straight from the ductless glands into the vascular system are of very great importance in almost all our bodily functions. They have recently been much studied, and the general name of Hormones given to them by Starling. ”

“ This subject, and its numerous ramifications, are well worth the careful research of the most highly-trained physiologists. There is nothing more profound, or of more vital moment to modern humanity as a whole, than is the understanding of the sex nature and sex needs of men and women.
I may point out as a mere suggestion that the man's sex-organs give rise to external and also to internal secretions. The former only leave the glands which secrete them as a result of definite stimulus ”

“ As has already been said, this use of the sex organs, merely to produce progeny, and so insure a continuance of the race, is a quality that mankind shares with all the rest of the animal kingdom. In all essentials, so far as the material parts of the act are concerned, the beginnings of the new life in the human family differ not a whit from that of any other mammals. In each case the ovum is produced by the ovaries of the female, passes into the womb, is there met by the semen from the male, fertilized by the spermatozoa, and so the foetus gets its start. ”

“ It is by the aid of the sex organs that children are begotten and brought into the world, that the race is reproduced and perpetuated. It is for this reason that the sex organs are also called the Reproductive Organs. ”

“ But we do not know, for physiologists have not yet studied the degree and character of the immense stimulus of sex-life and experience on the glands of the sex-organs, or how they affect the whole of the human being's life and powers. ”

“ Owing to the fact that both male and female organs develop from more primitive structures which were sexually undifferentiated, a fundamental analogy in the sexual organs of the sexes always remains; the developed organs of one sex exist as rudiments in the other sex; the testicles correspond to the ovaries; the female clitoris is the homologue of the male penis; the scrotum of one sex is the labia majora in the other sex, and so throughout, although it is not always possible at present to be quite certain in regard to these homologics. ”

“ There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a female liver. ”

“ If we examine the physical phenomenon of sex as it manifests itself in the human creature, we find, in the first stages of the individual’s existence, no difference discernible, by any means we have at present at our command, between those germs which are ultimately to become male or female. Later, in the foetal life, at birth, and through infancy though the organs of sex serve to distinguish the male from the female, there is in the general structure and working of the organism little or nothing to divide the sexes. ”

“ There may be simply a union of the perfect body of one sex with the susceptibility to such sexual charms as ordinarily attract the other sex alone, or with the mental traits of the other sex. Or the individual may possess the male genitals, but be beardless, or else possess mammary glands, broad pelvis, and sacral dimples; or possessing the female genitals, have a rudimentary moustache, or else meagrely developed breasts, narrow pelvis, etc. Instances have been known of human beings with an ovary on one side of the body and a testicle on the other, and of males who were able to suckle infants. ”

“ And now to say something of the change of the sexes in the womb. The genital parts of the sexes are so unlike each other in substance, composition, situation, figure, action and use that nothing is more unlike to each other than they are, and the more, all parts of the body (the breasts excepted, which in women swell, because Nature ordained them for suckling the infant) have an exact resemblance to each other, so much the more do the genital parts of one sex differ, when compared with the other, and if they be thus different in form, how much more are they so in their use. ”

“ The subsequent history of sex is, roughly speaking, the history of its invasion of more and more of the organization of its possessors. First the male as a whole, and not merely its reproductive cells, tends to become organized for finding the female. The female’s whole type of metabolism is altered to produce the most efficient storage of reserve material in her ova, and later she almost invariably protects and nourishes the young during the first part of their development, either within or without her own body. Appropriate instincts are of course developed in both male and female. ”

“ All of the members of the sex chain, including those of the thyroid, the adrenal and the pituitary, are necessary to the functions of menstruation, impregnation, settlement of fertilized ovum in the wall of the uterus, labor and lactation. A disturbance of one of them will set up disturbances all along the line, and a resonance of distress or compensation upon the part of all of them. As an interlocking directorate over the sexual functions of the female, they are members one of the other. So what helps or hurts one, helps or hurts all. ”

“ Practically it is all right, but medico-legally it is wrong, to make the genitals the universal criterion in the determination of sex. Medico-legally, sex should be determined by the psychical constitution rather than by the physical form. There are thousands of physical females who feel themselves to be men and have the mental traits of men, and there are thousands of physical males who feel themselves to be women and have the mental traits of a woman. Should any blame be attached to such individuals when they conduct themselves according to their psychical sex? ”

“ The mixed ensemble of the directly contrasting type, such as the concomitance of testes with feminine secondary sex traits, or of ovaries with masculine sex traits, have been described from time immemorial as freaks. Occurring even more frequently is the mixed sex ensemble, in which the type of reproductive organs and of secondary sex traits run roughly parallel, emulsified with certain traits of the opposite sex. ”

“ It is often exceedingly difficult to determine during life the true sex of the individual in cases of hermaphroditism. The only absolute test of the sex is the determination of the genital glands.
The labia should be carefully palpated to determine whether or not testicles are present. Rectal examination should be made to determine the existence of uterus or ovaries. The sexual inclinations of the individual should 401 be observed. The discharge from the genitals during sexual excitement should be examined for spermatozoa. ”

“ This indicates that there is no cause-and-effect relation between the feminine secondary sexual characters and the love for the male sex, but that they are twin effects of a common cause, namely, the presence in the male body of the particular kind of governing corpuscles or germs ordinarily found only in the protoplasm of females. ”