Is the life of the glandular system more active in man than in woman? As it respects the glands destined to digestion, the secretion of the tears, the evacuation of urine, &c. there is but little difference in the two sexes. As to genital glands, man has testicles and the prostate; woman has mammæ, so that in this respect they seem to be equal. Observe however that the influence of the first upon the economy, is much greater than that of the second. It is from the womb that go forth in woman the irradiations which correspond with those which the testicles send to all the other organs. ARTICLE FOURTH. DEVELOPMENT OF THE GLANDULAR SYSTEM. I. _State of this System in the Fœtus._ Though the secretions are not active in the fœtus, the glandular system is in general much developed. All the salivary glands and the pancreas are larger in proportion than afterwards; the liver is enormous; and the kidneys have a size much greater in proportion than they have in the adult. The same probably is true of the mucous glands, though I have not made any very precise researches upon this point. The form is different in many; the kidney for example is evidently uneven, whilst afterwards its surface is almost smooth. The colour is not the same; this is particularly striking in the salivary and lachrymal glands. These glands which are white in the adult, have in the fœtus an extreme redness which they lose by washing, which is not owing to the blood circulating in their vessels, though there is much of it in their vessels, but it is really inherent in their texture. This colour is never as great in the pancreas, though its texture is nearly the same. The texture of the glands is extremely soft and delicate at this age, which is the case with all the parts. They are divided and yield with great ease, and their vessels, which are large, carry into them a very great quantity of fluid. Then they are, if we may so say, in a state corresponding with that of remission in the adult; they secrete even less fluid, though they appear however to be in constant action. In fact, all the reservoirs would be insufficient to contain their fluids, if in a given time, as much flowed from them as after birth. Is this because the black blood, which then enters their parenchyma, is unfit to furnish the materials of the secretions? This may have an influence, and I have elsewhere imagined it, from the circumstance that this blood is unable to support many other functions. But the principal reason appears to me to be, that in the fœtus the nutritive motion of composition predominates evidently over that of decomposition, which is very inconsiderable. Almost every thing which arrives in the organs remains in them and continues to furnish the materials of the rapid growth which is then taking place in the body; now, the secretions being principally destined to carry off the residue of nutrition, must then be very inactive.