Abstract
Experimental sex-reversal and the study of intersexes in the vertebrates have been of fundamental importance in the analysis of the role of the genes and endocrine secretions in embryonic development, particularly in sex-differentiation.
Gallagher, et al., 1 indicated that urine from adult men and women contains both sex hormones and that the ratio of androgen to estrogen is higher in the urine of males than it is in the urine of females. The results obtained by Callow 2 substantiated the work of Gallagher, et al. Dingemanse, et al., 3 reported findings that are not altogether harmonious with the work just cited but stated that the androgen-estrogen ratio was similar in the urines of the two sexes. This evidence indicates that each sex is hermaphroditic regarding the sex hormones, the difference being a quantitative one.
Since these differences of the sex hormones' content of the respective urines of the sexes are quantitative and not qualitative, and since they seem proportionately not to be very great, the study of the effect of the synthetically prepared male sex hormone, testosterone propionate,∗ upon the viviparous teleost, Xiphophorus helleri Heckel, was initiated to determine if, and to what extent, the relatively greater amount of one sex hormone checks the development and activity of the functioning sex tissue and accessory ducts of the other sex, and stimulates its own sex ducts and tissue to develop, and to learn if such development be caused by the establishment of a relatively greater amount of the male sex hormone in the female.
Essenberg 4 theorized, from histological examinations of 2 cases of natural complete sex-reversal observed in several hundred fish, that about 50% of all females might undergo sex-inversion, but did not necessarily have to do so.
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