GENERATION. 479 much less, not amounting to more than four or six in one hundred.• Malformations are said to occur more fre quently among illegitimate than legitimate chil dren ; and malformed children are more fre quently of the female sex. This, together with the circumstance that illegitimate children are oftenest first born, may in some degree account for the greater number of females among them.
The data upon which it has been attempted to found an explanation of the cause of the formation of a male or female offspring are very slender indeed ; nor are we likely ever to ob tain knowledge which shall enable us to form a satisfactory theory regarding the cause of the determination of the sex. Some men beget always male children, others always females, in more than one marriage. The same seems sometimes to depend on the mother. In other marriages children of one sex are born for a time, and subsequently those of the other ; or the male and female children may alternate, &e. &e. without our being able to point out any circumstance which has given rise to the pro duction of one or other sex.
Accordingly many vague opinions have been entertained regarding this subject, as for exam ple the following : 1. That the wishes or ideas of the parents at the time of conceptions may influence the sex of the offspring.
2. The nature of the food of the parents, par ticularly of the mother during pregnancy.
3. The use of various medicines : hence the numerous charms and recipes for begetting children of either sex.
4. The quantity of oxygen absorbed during development.
5. 1 he manner in which the spermatic artery is given off from the aorta, and 6. The older and equally groundless notion that male children come from the right testicle or ovary, and females from the left ; upon which hypothesis was founded the celebrated advice of II ippocrates : " Ubi femellam gene rare valet (pater) coeat, ac dextram testem obli get, quantum id tolerare poterit, sed si ma rem generare appetat, sinister testis obligandus erit." A belief has long prevailed that the greater the strength of either of the parents in propor tion to the other, the more of its own sex will be generated. M. Girou de Buzaraignes has paid considerable attention to the influence of age, strength, mode of life, &e. of the parents on the sex of the offspring, and has made a series of experiments on the domestic animals, from which, should they be confirmed, some important results may be expected.
According to M. Girou,-I- male fathers among the domestic animals which are either too old or too young, produce with mature and healthy females more female than male offspring ; while female parents that are too old or too young in proportion to the males bear most males. This Franre. Prussia. Hamburg. Boys. Boys. Boys. Girls.
'111eitimate 10-1• 10'2• 04.1 100 Legitimate ditto 106. 106• 105 I t Stir la Glineration.
would appear to he the case in the human species also from the observations of 1Iofacker at Tubingen, and of Saddler on the English peerage : the children of a husband consider ably younger than his wife being nearly in the proportion of ninety sons to a hundred daugh ters; while those of the husband considerably older than the mother are in the proportion of a hundred and fifty or a hundred and sixty sons to a hundred daughters ; the intermediate ages being found to give a proportionate scale.
Burdach states that those women who are most fruitful bear many more boys than girls, as in the following examples :— Boys. Girls.
According to Girou, female domestic animals bear more females when well nourished and left in repose than when much worked and on spare diet ; and it has been alleged that the sexes of plants are influenced by their nourish ment or soil in which they grow ; dicecious plants having seeds which propagate more males in dry ground exposed to the sun, more females in moist, well manured, and shady ground ; moncecious plants bearing more of the staminiferous or pistilliferous flowers in cor responding circumstances.
The explanation of the cause of this variation of the sex as well as of the original sexual dif ference, it has already been remarked, is beyond the reach of investigation. Very interesting observations have, however, brought to light the different steps of the process by which the generative organs of either sex are gradually formed during the development of the ileum ; and a series of facts has thus been established of great interest and importance as tending to elucidate the nature of those numerous remark able malformations of the reproductive organs generally comprehended under the term 11cr maphrodism. We refer the reader to the article upon this subject, and to that of Ovum, for a history of the process now alluded to, and shall not do more than merely mention in this place some of the more important results which have been obtained.
1st. I t appears that in the earl lest stages of fietal life, the sexes (or what may become afterwards either male or female, that is, all the young) are perfectly alike in structure.
2nd. That there exists in all a common ma trix or rudimentary organ or set of organs, which at a later period is converted by deve lopment into the male or female organs.
3rd. That the early type of the sexual organs is to be regarded as common and single, rather than double,as some have considered it.
In conclusion, we may remark that we must confess ourselves equally unable to fathom the nature of the original bias or determination given by the parents, in consequence of which a male or a female child is produced, and to ascertain the manner in which any other here ditary influence, quality, or conformation is transmitted from the parent to its offspring. At the same time it appears not improbable