rocess of fertilization, it must lose one half of these.
So the number of chromosomes for the species is kept the same or
constant. This is the process of maturation. In the process, when the
chromosome number is halved among the females, 11 go into each mature
egg. But among the males, the odd chromosome, also known as the
X-chromosome, can perforce go only into half of the sperm cells,
leaving the others without it. So the sperm are formed in equal
numbers of 10 and 11 chromosomes respectively.
When fertilization occurs, and the sperm cell fuses with the egg, the
following may take place: (1) a ten chromosome sperm may unite with
the eleven chromosome egg, and produce a twenty-one chromosome
individual or (2) an eleven chromosome sperm may unite with an eleven
chromosome egg producing a twenty-two chromosome individual. It has
been found that the twenty-two chromosome individual invariably
develops into a female, and the twenty-one into a male. Therefore,
femaleness is a positive quality, dependent upon the action of the
X-chromosome, and maleness an absence of femaleness, due to lack
of the extra, odd chromosome. In man, two X-chromosomes have been
discovered, half the sperm containing 12, and the other half
containing only 10 chromosomes. The number of chromosomes in human
cells consequently is 22 in the male and 24 in the female.
The X-chromosome is the bearer of sex destiny. There still remains the
work to be done on the actual control of sex by man, apart from its
natural determination. For the time being, let the feminists glory in
the fact that they have two more chromosomes to each cell than
their opponents. Certainly there can be no talk here of a natural
inferiority of women.
THE SECONDARY OR ENDOCRINE SEX TRAITS
Yet the matter is after all not so simple as this would make it out
to be. All that can be safely laid down is that the character of the
reproductive organs is determined by the extra chromosomes. And though
these reproductive organs have a good deal to do with the masculine or
feminine quality of the organism as a whole, through their internal
secretions, they are not alone. All the other internal secretions have
their say in the final outcome, determining what may be called the
dominant sex quality, but leaving inherent the latent soil of the
other sex. This may become active and dominant in its turn, under
certain conditions of stimulation, abnormality, or disease, dependent
upon a rearr
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