Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/208

 194 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

At the epoch of puberty, when the organs of generation attain their development and are awakened to functionality, nota- ble changes occur in the physical character of young people. The stature in this period undergoes remarkable oscillations. There is first a period of repose and gathering of strength, as it were, in which its increase is very slight ; then follows a period of rapid growth, which in the girl usually takes place between the fourteenth and the fifteenth year, while in the boy it takes place usually between the fifteenth and the sixteenth. According to my investigations,' the average increase of stature in girls in the year of greatest growth has reached eleven centimeters ; in boys the average increase was eight centimeters. There follows another period of sluggishness, in which the sexual hair grows, and the voice changes, becomes deeper in man and higher in woman. In this period also the capacity of the thorax increases, the muscular system is developed powerfully in man, the adipose tissue in woman, who receives therefrom roundness and beauty of form, while there is established in her the ovulation associated with the menstrual discharge, and in the male the spermatic secretion begins. And that these changes are in close depend- ency on the development of the organs of generation is proved by the fact that when, either from natural condition or accidental cause, the organs mentioned are atrophied or injured or destroyed, these modifications are lacking.

I had in my charge in the asylum two individuals with the genital organs atrophied. In one of these, aged thirty-three, the voice was thin, the beard was lacking. The other, still in the asy- lum at the age of more than forty years, is entirely beardless, and without hair on any part of the body except the head, the eyebrows, and the eyelashes. His voice is a falsetto; manly energy is lacking.

Castration of males before the age of puberty also prevents the development of the beard and the larynx, and produces the same effects as the spontaneous arrest of the development of the generative organs. Dupuytren, dissecting the corpse of a man

' Antonio Marro, La puberta studiata mil' uomo e nella donna, etc., p. 13. Torino, 1 898.