The mechanism and physiology of sex determination / by Richard Goldschmidt ; translated by William J. Dakin.

  • Goldschmidt, Richard, 1878-1958.
Date:
1923
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The mechanism and physiology of sex determination / by Richard Goldschmidt ; translated by William J. Dakin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/292 (page 1)
    THE MECHANISM AND PHYSIOLOGY OF SEX DETERMINATION INTRODUCTION. THE NATURE OF SEX HE majority of biological sex problems—and of these only is there any discussion in this book—arise from the presence of two different sexes in the realm of living organisms. The problems resulting from this (and their solution) constitute one of the most fascinating chapters of the science of life. In addition it is one which has responded most successfully to investigation, both in regard to the richness of the results and the depth of penetration in the direction of a causal and physio¬ logical understanding. The greater part of the following work is devoted to a presentation of these problems, but it must not be forgotten that this is not the whole of the problem of sex. The presupposition for the distinction of sexes is of course the presence of sexual reproduction. This is regarded as one of the fundamental problems of Biology, the solution of which would remove the veil from a great part of the secret of life. The moment for this has not yet arrived, but a proper consideration of the material which has now accumulated from countless ex¬ periments and observations gives some idea of the direction in which we may look for the complete solution. It is not so long ago that entire groups of organisms were held to be of such simple organization that they were only capable of reproduction by simple binary fission. With increasing know¬ ledge the number of such organisms has gradually diminished, and now in the animal world (and in the following chapters we are concerned only with this section of living organisms) there is scarcely an example of which we can say with certainty that its only means of reproduction is asexual. Early or late, there SECTION I CHAPTER I I