The sexual question : $b A scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological studyForel, Auguste
Science
The sexual question : $b A scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study
Forel, Auguste
Sex
In some of the lower animals, for example the ants, the sexes differ
remarkably from each other and appear to belong to different
zoölogical families. The eyes, the form of the head, the color, and
the whole body differ so much that, when a case of pathological
lateral hermaphrodism is produced (that is, when the sexual glands are
male on the one side and female on the other), we can exactly
determine the male or female character on each portion of the body. We
thus see hermaphrodite ants with one half of the body male and the
other half female--black on one side and red on the other, a large eye
on one side and a small eye on the other, thirteen joints in one
antenna and twelve in the other, and so on. In this case the mental
faculties are sometimes female, sometimes male, according as the
ecphoria of the brain is influenced by the hereditary mneme of the
male or female part of the hermaphrodite sexual organs, which results
in a male or female brain. I have seen hermaphrodite ants in which two
parts of the thorax formed a crossed hermaphrodism; in front, male on
the right and female on the left, behind female on the right and male
on the left. Further; among ants which live in societies, the
progressive transformation of the species, or phylogeny, has produced
a third sex derived from the female sex--the worker; sometimes there
is even a fourth--the warrior. In these two forms the wings are
absent, but the head and brain are much larger; the sexual organs
remain female, but are very small. While the large brain (pedunculated
bodies of the supra-esophageal ganglion) is almost rudimentary in the
male, it is well developed in the female and very large in the worker
and the warrior. Among these singular animals exist pathological
hermaphrodites, not only between males and females, but between males
and workers, and not only lateral but mixed and crossed in all
possible ways. I have seen a hermaphrodite, whose abdomen and sexual
organs were almost entirely male, accomplish all the complex
instinctive actions of a worker of his species (expeditions, attacks
on a hostile ant heap, abduction of chrysalids), thanks to its head
and brain which were of the worker type. The female itself is
incapable of such complex actions. I cite these facts here as material
for study, for we are only too prone in this domain to generalize
prematurely and to draw too hasty conclusions. In reality, there is
still a wide field for study of the greatest interest.
There are animals which are normally and physiologically
hermaphrodite, for they possess in the normal state male and female
sexual glands and fecundate themselves, such as the solitary worms, or
in pairs such as the snails. In the latter case there is copulation,
during which each animal plays the parts of both male and female.
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