The causation of sex : a new theory of sex based on clinical materials ; together with chapters on the sex of the unborn child, and on the determination of sex at will / by E. Rumley Dawson.

  • Dawson, E. Rumley (Ernest Rumley), -1918.
Date:
1909
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The causation of sex : a new theory of sex based on clinical materials ; together with chapters on the sex of the unborn child, and on the determination of sex at will / by E. Rumley Dawson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I70 THE CAUSATION OF SEX (evidence of ovulation) being shown. It was found at a second operation, and had been left after a supposed com¬ plete double oophorectomy. He says : Such a retained portion of ovary is sufficient to maintain not only menstruation, but ovulation, and it will form corpora lutea. Ovulation is //¿e function of the ovaries ; hence if all ovarian tissue be removed ovulation is arrested, the woman is abso¬ lutely sterile, and menstruation permanently ceases. And here it will be well to inquire how much—or, rather, how little—ovarian tissue will be sufficient to ovulate, and thus lead to the birth of a child. The ova being microscopic, we should expect from this that an exceedingly small portion only would be necessary, and this is what we find to be the case. The following extracts prove it : Dr. Galabin ^ showed tumours of both ovaries removed at the fourth month of pregnancy. The right tumour was a dermoid cyst containing gruel-like fluid, which solidified on cooling. The left tumour was an ordinary cystic adenoma, except that three small cysts in it were evidently dermoid. In the left tumour was seen a large corpus luteum of pregnancy, and near it a small fragm,ent of unaltered ovary. A paper, too, by Dr. Condamin^ of Lyons, on pregnancy in women suffering from large bilateral ovarian dermoids, shows how little ovarian tissue is requisite to give rise to a fertilisable ovum ; and Dr. Herman ^ says that, even in bilateral ovarian disease, so advanced that healthy ovarian tissue cannot be detected by the naked eye, the patient may become pregnant. Further, Mr. Bland-Sutton'^ says : Both ovaries may be so distorted and destroyed by dermoids that the true ovarian tissue is unrecognisable to the naked eye ; yet these organs are not only able to dominate menstruation, but to discharge their egg- bearing functions successfully. ' Galabin, Trans. Obstet. Soc., 1896, p. loi. ^ Condamin, Annals of Obstetrics and Gynsecology, March 1904, p. 188. ® Herman, Diseases of Women, p. 763. Bland-Sutton, Diseases of Ovaries, 1896, p. 61,