is the fact that a certain
number of geldings possess a well-marked sexual impulse, because in
these animals, though they were gelded while still immature, the
operation was performed too late. All these observations combine to
justify the inference that long before spermatozoa capable of effecting
fertilisation are formed in the testicles, changes occur in these
glands which are of great importance in relation to the sexual life,
both in the human species and in the lower animals.

We cannot speak so positively as to the truth of this in the case of the
reproductive glands in women, the ovaries, because alike in the human
female and in the females of the lower animals oophorectomy is less
commonly performed than is castration in the male. The literature of our
subject contains few references to this matter. What little information
we do possess, derived in part from travellers who have had
opportunities for observation in extra-European countries, and in part
from students of animal life, leads to the same conclusion as in the
case of males, namely, that long before the age commonly regarded as the
commencement of sexual maturity, important changes are going on in the
reproductive glands.

No detailed discussion can be attempted here of the other observations
there may be on record to show the existence of such sexual processes
during childhood. We may merely refer, for example, to the results of
the removal of one testicle before the commencement of puberty; this is
followed by a compensatory hypertrophy of the other testicle--whereas
removal of one testicle after the attainment of sexual maturity does not
lead to any such hypertrophy of the remaining testicle, or if so, only
in comparatively slight degree.

Although from the facts just stated it appears that, alike in human
beings and in the lower animals, before the formation of the specific
germ-cells and sperm-cells has begun in the reproductive glands of the
respective sexes important processes take place in these glands, it
still remains obscure what is the nature of these processes, and in what
manner they influence the organism. One question complicating this
problem, and one which is to-day frequently discussed, is the extent of
the influence exercised by the reproductive glands on the development of
the secondary sexual characters. I can here do little more than state
the difficulty. Whereas it was formerly assumed that the reproductive
glands exercised a