Schenk's theory : the determination of sex / by Leopold Schenk. Authorized translation.

  • Schenk, Samuel Leopold, 1840-1902.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Schenk's theory : the determination of sex / by Leopold Schenk. Authorized translation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    from the statistics of the lying-in hospitals. This is, in my opinion, hardly to be expected. On various occasions, whilst taking into con- sideration the possibility of an influence on the part of the parents over the sex of the child (in such respects as have been placed before us in the literature dealing with this subject), we often had occasion to direct attention to the food of the parents. And especially the food of the mother seemed to us to be of the highest im- portance. Now, it is universally known that metabolism is increased during pregnancy. The products of excretion in the case of pregnant women are much smaller than the quantity of matter taken in, in the shape of food. The difference, to a great extent, represents the matter taken to form the bodily substance of the embryo, in accordance with the anterior laws which have been fixed by the doc- trines of the physiology of metabolism. It will, then, be necessary to pay particular attention to the investigation of metabolism. Suggestions are not wanting. They will be found amongst the observations of leading specialists. For example, Winckel observed that during pregnancy the