II. Passing now to girls, traces of the mammae, which give their characteristic name to the highest group of ani- 420 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE n^als, first appear in man by the end of the second month of intra-uterine Hfe. The mammae and the nipple were devel- oped by the grouping to one orifice of many glands slowly dififerentiated from those diffused over the dermal surface on which they open up to about the stage of the mono- tremes, traces of their old independence still being seen in slight pimple-like protuberances about the nipple and prob- ably in supplementary mammae. In their secretions these resemble the sebaceous, but in structure the sudoriferous glands. At first in the human female they secrete not milk but colostrum, and as Becquerel and Vernois have shown, there are more salts, butter, caseins, and soHds before twenty, but the water and sugar ingredients increase after. The profound sympathy of the mammae with the vita sexualis, both physically and psychically, is well known, and is estab- Hshed at this age when both their sensitiveness to touch and their secretions respond acutely to psychic and nervous influences.
Philogenetically they are evolved probably not from sebaceous but by specialized sweat glands. Up to ten or twelve years of age the internal structure and the outer form of the breasts is nearly the same for boys and for girls. At puberty they begin to undergo important modifications in females, and ever thereafter respond in the most sympa- thetic way to the changes in the pelvic molimena. Both the galactophores or glands and the supportive areolar tissue develop rapidly at this period, but the latter much pre- ponderates until pregnancy, to which, in this respect, puberty is in a sense preparatory, when the former rapidly mature. Until eleven or twelve the glandular elements continue to divide in both sexes, but without forming true lobules. At this age, development, which it is very significant to note, is sometimes marked and even excessive in the male, and sometimes also retrogression occurs. In girls the circle around the nipple or the areola enlarges, and its distinctly pink color deepens, the nipple projects and grows firm, and the orifice of the separate glands appear as pimply projec- tions, and its sensitiveness, measured by reaction to mechan- ical stimulation, increases. Fat also develops in the body of the breasts, and the alveoli enlarge and probably new ones SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT 4^1 are formed. The gland as a whole grows from one-half or three-fourths of an inch across and one-sixth of an inch in thickness, the size at which it remains in the male, to an average of about four and one-half inches wide and one-half an inch thick in the female. Arteries and veins also undergo adaptive enlargement. Very rarely there is a slight secre- tion and discharge at puberty, as sometimes in early infancy.
These are among the more variable parts of the body. Polymasty or supernumerary breasts occur about once in five hundred persons. These may be outside or above, but are generally caudad and suggestive of the rows of dugs in many higher vertebrates, but indeed may occur on almost any part of the trunk or even limbs. Charpy finds great indi- vidual differences beginning at puberty. The distance of the mammae from each other increases somewhat in propor- tion to the curve of the thorax with well-marked, broad and round, especially long and pear-shaped, types often dis- tinguished as racial differences, and varying with the form of the chest. The completeness of their development in structure no less than in function is also exceedingly variable, and is influenced by everything in the environment, includ- ing food, regimen, and occupation, error here tending to retard the later stages of their development. Few organs suffer more from avoidable cause of arrest, and one of the earliest of the long degenerative stages which mark the decay of ethnic stock is imperfect mammary functfon and inability to nurse offspring sufficiently.
The changes in the female organs of generation at puberty are very marked and of great complexity and im- portance. The mons is covered with hair, which, beginning in the central part, spreads slowly to its full and very variable extent, grows for several years in density, rigidity, and com- monly takes on a darker hue. Adipose tissue is developed and the integument probably thickens. The labia majora also thicken by the same process, growing more over the labia minoria and reducing the rima. At no period of life are the outer labia so closely approximated, the vulva so entirely closed, and the inner parts so hidden, a result to which the rapid growth of the thighs at this age also con- tributes. The dartos tunic of unstriped muscular tissue is 422 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE enlarged even more than the fat, nerves, and glands of the labia majora at puberty. The triangular apex of the minor labia protrude very slightly, changing to a darker hue, and the sebaceous glands of this part develop, while those of the nympha do so only in pregnancy. The distance from the fossa to the mons increases, and the marked racial difference in the position of the vaginal opening and of its direction, but slightly manifest before, now appear.
The pubertal growth of the clitoris is relatively about equal and very similar to that of the corresponding male organ. It acquires now its power of erectility. The genital corpuscles of Krause, and those of Finger, in which the nerves which stimulate reflex erectility end, no doubt undergo developmental changes. The urethral glands and the venous plexi of all the erectile tissues enlarge in all these parts, which together are the homologues of the prostate gland in man. The anterior tubercle of the vagina, how- ever, which surrounds the meatus, diminishes at least rela- tively, while the vulvo-vaginal glands grow nearly to the size of an almond, and secrete reflexly upon excitation of the clitoris.^ Much the same is true of the mucous secretions of the vestibulary and urethral follicles. Whether the acidity of these secretions is increased, or only their quantity, is un- known. The secretory function, too, of all these parts is augmented in a marked degree.
The vagina undergoes a great increase of both length and breadth. Its muscular tunic thickens, the mucous sur- faces redden and grow active, and all the venous plexi enlarge as the circulation in these parts increases.
The uterus is small in children, but grows immensely on the approach of womanhood to forty or fifty grammes in weight, and also changes from a cylindrical to its character- istic pyriform shape. As the pelvic cavity enlarges it tips forward and its anteflexion is slightly diminished, its neck becomes relatively shorter, and the orifices toward the tubes become longer and more opened as the cavity grows larger. The arbor vitae shows its structure, making its neck resem- ble the buccal orifice. The muscular walls increase greatly, * See Bierent, La Puberty, 1896, pp. 104-121.
SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT 4^3 partly by enlargement of preexisting and partly by the development of new fibers, and the mucous surfaces undergo very important changes described elsewhere in the complex processes of nidification and menstruation.
The hymen grows in both thickness and tenacity, but there is hardly more individual variation in these respects than in size and form of its orifice. Probably its form changes at puberty from the previously simpler shape and is less often annular and more often coroUiform, and it is often broken by several rarely symmetrical notches or lobes. From puberty its orifice enlarges slowly till full nubility. The bulbus vestibuli certainly, and probably the sphincter vaginas, and Kobelt's pars intermedia, participate in the accelerated growth of this period. So too must the nerves, if we can infer from the great increase of sensitiveness.
Puech found that the ovaries grew from early girlhood in each of their three dimensions, and that there was a marked augmentation of rate at or near the dawn of puberty, but that their growth normally continued for some years after- ward before they attained adult dimensions, the right always slightly leading the left. They grow soft and vascular, but weight increases in about the same proportion as size, or from about two or three grams before puberty to five or six at full maturity. Their growth in length is greater than in their vertical and transverse diameters. Up to ten the ovaries are at about the level of the iliac fossae, but they become intrapelvic and more or less mobile at puberty, owing to their erectile function and the traction of the uterus and Fallopian muscles. A slight projection at a single point marks the ripening of the first Graafian follicle, the monthly rupture of which is later to scarify the previously smooth ovarian surfaces. The parenchyma of the ovaries from which the ovules germinate is not only enlarged, but becomes the center upon which the pubertal development of breasts and uterus is especially dependent. The medullary substance grows more than any other part of the ovarian tissue at puberty, and is enlarged much at the first menstruation and somewhat at each later one, when its color also changes to a dark slaty-red, due to normal congestion.
Since 1827, when von Baer discovered the ovum in man.
424 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE the existence of which had long been known in animals, there has been, as Auvard well says, a revolution in genital physi- ology. Ovulation is at least in some sense a secretion, although, unlike other glands, the ovaries and testes secrete living cells. The process is spontaneous, the ova emerging from the Graafian follicle at the surface of the ovaries, and being conveyed through them mainly by ciliary motions to the uterus. Normally the ovaries lay their eggs when the nest of uterine mucus is ready to receive and fix them if impregnated, although the latter is broken down and dis- charged if not needed. These two processes, however, are somewhat independent, for each may occur without the other, although normally they are almost as coincident as the special adjustment of the vocal cords and the stress of the breath used to produce phonation. The growth of the mu- cous surface is a monthly anabolic surplus upon which the ovum can live for a time. If it is not fertilized, these prepara- tions are vain, and menstruation is an expression of their failure. When the cellular detritus from the inner wall of the uterus has passed off, the blood ceases, and in eight or ten days the lost lining is replaced, and the wounds in the ovaries caused by the bursting of the folHcle and the libera- tion of the ova are healed, leaving, however, scars for each period. We have here, then, a striking case of the rejuvena- tion of the tissue by proliferation centering about reproduc- tion, which may itself be considered as the very highest degree of this process. Here, too, we have atavistic sug- gestions of a great but now lost fecundity. In the two ovaries of a girl of eighteen there are estimated to be 72,000 primitive ova, of which, however, only about 400 mature during life, reaching an average size of y^y of an inch.^ III. Andrews ^ has undertaken to describe the efifects of castration on animals as follows: Wethers do not grow larger, but their wool is less oily and of more value, indicating sympathy of the testes with sebaceous glands. Cats grow larger, are fonder of petting, as if a secondary sex quality was increased, and remain good mousers. The * Lee. American Text-Book of Physiology, pp. 887, 982.
* Am. Med. Jour., January, 1898.
SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT 4^5 horse grows larger if castrated young, suggesting the inverse ratio of individuation to genesis, but the bridle teeth are not modified as in the full male, indicating less vigor of jaw development and less power to bite. The calf is larger and taller than the bull, but his neck and fore-quarters, effective in sexual conflicts with other males, are smaller. His cere- bellum increases, and his horns are longer and perhaps even thicker, but on the whole less powerful and dangerous than those of the bull. The pitch of the voice is higher, not in bellowing, to which he is more prone, but in lowing. The elks experimented on did not shed their horns, which are accessory sexual in function, as usual, but their tips were frozen in the severe winter, and when they came off numerous small sprouts grew in the spring, which were again nipped the next winter, until large bony knobs arose which, per- haps, if protected with care, would have attained a great size.
The influence of sex seems to extend in some mysterious way, which we do not understand, to that disappearance of cartilage which marks the cessation of bone growth. The general view since Haller was for a long time that castration weakened the force of growth. Springer ^ holds that nutritive activity is checked in eunuchs, and that they have especially small and arrested legs and thin thighs like old men. Lortet, however,^ who has examined many eunuchs and extended his study to castrated animals, concludes that while their pelvic and thoracic regions are small, most bones of the arms, legs, feet, and fingers are long, slender, comparable with the bones of the ox, and often delicate, and that this is especially true of the legs. May it be that there is an inverse relation between length of limb, especially the femur, and relative size of pelvis and sexual vigor and maturity, and that dis- proportionate length of upper leg is a bad sign for maternity? This operation on the eunuchs of Cairo, even though it may have been performed in infancy, does not cause much dif- ferentiation till puberty, but they attain a stature of nearly two inches more than the average of their race.
* La Croissance, Paris, 1899.
' Comptes Rendus de I'Acad. des Sciences, April, 1890.
426 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE Lancaster ^ quotes a letter from " a well-known professor in a New England College," who spent years in the East among Nubian eunuchs, as follows: ''There is no question that castration at an early age does in various ways modify physical development, though I do not think it modifies it so much as is commonly supposed. The difference most likely to be observed was in the voice. Castration does produce an immense effect, though an indirect one, upon the character. It is not the operation in itself, but its effects upon the mind. The mind broods over the fact that the body is reproductively impotent and is filled with morbid resentment and jealousy. No other physical deformity can so far distort and devilize the character. As far as I can judge, sex feelings exist unmodified by absence of the sexual organs. The eunuch differs from the man, not in the absence of sexual passion, but only in the fact that he can not fully gratify it. As far as he can approach a gratification of it, he does so. Often, maddened by a sense of impotence, he wreaks vengeance on the irresponsible object of which he is enamored...The eunuchs have all the adolescent phenomena. I have watched, for example, boy-eunuchs of ten or eleven years, possibly younger. Early conscious, as they are, of their desexed condition, there was nothing ap- parent in their moods or pleasures different from other children of their race. They took the same dehght in a perfume or a flower, or a pretty baby, as any other boy of their race would have done. The little eunuch is more incHned to solitude than almost any Western child, but per- haps no more than his compatriots. As to rebelling against authority, I have more than once seen a diminutive eunuch do that." 2 Marro^ insists on the close relation between the develop- ment of organs and the secondary sexual characteristics, and gives two interesting cases where the former atrophied and 1 Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence, by E. G. Lancaster. Ped. Sem., * Kroemer [Zeitsch. f. Psychopath., 135-52] and Krafft-Ebing [Psych. Arbeiten, iii., 189], recommend it guardedly for men in cases of sexual hyperaesthesia, but the latter thinks its beneficial effects are not apparent for a year or two.
' La Puberty. Bull, de la Soc. de Med. de Belgique, 1894, p. 1575.
SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT 4^7 the latter did not develop. History records the achievements of many eunuchs of great ability — the Marseilles philosopher, Favorino, the Egyptian general, Aristonicus, Narses, the general of Justinian, Salomon, one of the Heutenants of Beli- sarius, Haly, grand vizier of Soliman; but Marro thinks these are exceptions. Eunuchs, he holds, are precocious and never live to great age. The pulse is feeble, and they are prone to varicosities in the extremities and to periodic hemorrhoids, liver troubles, etc. Like animals thus muti- lated, they are more docile. In Central Asia, Dr. G. Roberts reports that girls are often castrated to act the role of and sometimes to be sold for eunuchs. Mojon thinks that if this operation is performed upon the young, those bones not yet entirely hardened continue soft and growing. Osteomalacia, which is especially a disease of women, and consists in soften- ing of the bones, is arrested by extirpation of the ovaries. Acromegalia, which is also closely connected with the sexual organs, and is marked by extraordinary development of the bones of the face and those of both the upper and lower extremities, sometimes causes girls to assume a virile aspect, the voice to deepen, and the breasts to shrink, the thyroid gland and the clitoris to increase, and the genesic desires, and perhaps the periods, to diminish. Marie, Souza-Leite, Tamburini, Tanzi, and Freund think this trouble closely con- nected with disorder of the genital functions at puberty. Indeed, some think that the terminal parts of the extremi- ties grow first at puberty, the hands and feet becoming less graceful and magnified, and their muscles and even fat devel- oping out of proportion to the rest of the body which makes up its due proportions later. If this be so, normal puberty would present anomalies similar to those of acromegalia.
Flood ^ thinks that if castrated young, man grows taller, fatter, and has a larger frame; that the hair on pubes and face does not grow; that the cheeks look round and promi- nent, and the chin is often double; that the voice of boys is higher, and that of girls lower. Harris ^ thinks eunuchs have longer legs, light pelvis, and are prone to be undeveloped » Notes on the Castration of Idiot Children. Am. Jour, of Psy., vol. x, p. 396. ' Phila. Med. Jour.. 1898.
428 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE in chest and arms, again like the ox, and their bones are not only longer but more hollow and so weaker. The skin of castrated negroes often grows several shades lighter col- ored, as if the color-type was weakened. Eunuchs are said to suffer less from gout and renal calculus, as if sex was inversely as this kidney function, have a weak, slow pulse, are prone to hemorrhoids, liver troubles, indicating con- comitant decline of glandular vigor, rarely live to old age, and resemble animals thus operated upon which are more tractable and more easily domesticated.
The functional castration, practised among the Pueblo Indians to fit certain young men for religious ceremonies and also for pederasty, is performed by excessive abuse oi this function in unmentionable ways till local paralytic impotence supervenes and becomes permanent, and the victims are reduced to the condition of " mugenados " or women-men, when the organs atrophy, the beard falls out, the voice grows feminine, and the breasts give milk. In China, where the Emperor used to keep 2,000 eunuchs, the operation removes all organs by a single stroke before adolescence, and the process is said to be fatal in only three per cent of the cases. It is practised by certain fanatical religious sects, notably the White Doves or Skoptzi, in Russia, to insure purity. They are described as a very vigorous people with many excellent qualities. Ablation of the ovaries, still practised in Bombay, suppresses the menses, makes the voice harsh, the breasts shrunken, the face hairy, the character forceful and mascu- line, and the form angular and unattractive.
In general, the psychic as well as the physical effects of castration are less the later the latter operation. The ox and gelding, as is known, do not entirely lose their libido, but it is greatly reduced. Guinard has shown that in two or three per cent of cases castration of horses does not prevent coition. In men libido of a falsetto kind may occur. Flood, who operated on twenty-six idiot boys, all but two of whom were under seventeen, and half under fourteen, reports sexual appetite missing in all but two cases, and in these being only spasmodic, although erections, and in one case masturbation, persisted slightly at intervals. In all instances temper was greatly improved, and there was less pugnacity, obstinacy, SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT 4^9 self-will, and more sympathy, altruism, and normal balance of emotion. Mobius,^ who has given us the fullest history of the effects of castration, lays emphasis on the mental enfeeble- ment.
Facts in this field thus show the dependence of a very important group of not only physical but psychic qualities upon the presence of this quasi-gland, the loss of which seems to change both the intensity and the nature of character more than the loss of one and perhaps both legs, or any other removable part.
There has been much recent discussion in this country concerning the desirability of this operation. On the whole, the testimony seems conclusive that epileptic seizures may thus be made both less frequent and less severe. All but two of Flood's cases were epileptics, and only five were thought to need even diminished doses of bromide after the opera- tion. Dr. W. O. Henry ^ designates as a crime of medical men their failure to urge legislation to prevent the marriage of criminals, or else to have them castrated. In 1897 a bill was introduced into the Michigan Legislature to insure the castration of inmates of the State Home for the Feeble- Minded and Epileptic before their discharge, in the case of those convicted of rape or of a felony for the third time, but it did not pass. The House Committee on Public Health of the Kansas Legislature lately reported favorably on a bill doing away with prison for rape and substituting castration, and was supported by the Social Purity League of Topeka. It has been claimed that ten other States would follow the lead of Kansas. Dr. Daniels, of Texas, and the late Dr. Wey, of Elmira, have urged castration for sexual perversion and for habitual criminals, and Dr. Boal, of Illinois,^ recommended it and ovariotomy for the punishment of crime and the reformation of criminals. It has also been often urged of late, instead of lynching, for n^roes who commit rape in the South.
This may well give us pause. The case of dangerous » Ueber die Wirkung der Castration. Halle, 1903.
* Medical Herald, June, 1866.
•Jour. Am. Med. Ass'n, September, 1895.
43° THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE idiots is certainly very different from that of criminals. Fel- ony has no fixed meaning and varies greatly in different lands and in different States, and few jurists would venture to define it. It is heinous and used to involve loss of all pos- sessions, but now often includes crimes punishable by death or imprisonment, and is sometimes due to excessive vigor in wrong directions which subjective inhibition or objective de- terrents have not yet repressed, and which we may yet learn to divert to right directions. How far law should undertake human stirpiculture by such methods involves some of the deepest problems of biology, of the rights of personality and of society, and perhaps penal colonies or other new ways of treating crime, the possibility of new human varieties, etc.
This operation in maturity is far more serious, and ac- cording to Cabot ^ is very liable to be followed by mental dis- turbance as well as death when performed on the aged for enlarged prostate. While those subjected to it early in life practically lose the desire, this is far less abated in those operated on in later years. The extreme envy and jealousy charged to eunuchs may be due largely to their fidelity and zeal in defending the women in their charge.
When this operation in man occurs after puberty, normal congress but not fecundation is possible, and probably more often so in men than in animals. Glaevecke found that in females castrated after maturity sexual desire persisted in twenty-two per cent, was diminished in thirty-seven per cent, and extinguished in forty-one per cent. Jayle,^ as the result of a questionnaire, reports that out of thirty-three cases of ovarian castration, desire was unchanged in eight- een, diminished in three, abolished in eight, increased in three; pleasure remained the same in seventeen, was dimin- ished in one, abolished in nine, increased in five, and painful in six. In thirteen cases of utero-ovarian castration, desire was unchanged in three, diminished in two, abolished in one, and augmented in four, while pleasure remained the same in six, was increased in one, was hyperesthetic in one, and pain- ful in one. Auto-suggestion that after the operation there * Annals of Surgery, September, 1896.
SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT 431