Part 13

And now we are negotiating the rock on which so many enquirers have foundered whilst seeking the causation of sex. The existence of the “freak” ovary has apparently exploded the simple formula of “Boys after, girls before.” The formula would have held good but for the fact of the freak ovary being too common to be overlooked. The vitality of this ovum interfering with the so-called “fruitless month,” in which every normal woman is safe from conception, is most disturbing, and, in the early years of my work, this abnormality caused me much trouble. Now that I have solved the problem I regard this factor as the corner-stone upon which rests the whole structure of my discovery.

Subtle and yet so definite when revealed, the distinct operations of each ovary have given me the key to the explanation of a very baffling question. The month in the ordinary course should be fruitless, because, had the left ovary menstruated and thrown out its ovum seven days or more before the flow, it would by the actual day of the period have lost its vitality, and, if unfertilised, been carried off by the flow itself. In its turn the right ovary, when due to menstruate, would leave quiescent the uterus until the actual moment of the period, and discharge its ovum after the third day of the flow, or even later.

With the presence of the “freak” ovary, however, all this is changed. We find the ovum still active and dangerously receptive on the second and third day after cessation of the menses. And so the girl-child, which is conceived after the period (although in a different month to that of the boy) suffices to undermine the old adage, “Girls before, boys after.” It is, no doubt, this anomaly which explains, to a large extent, the utter lack of practical conclusions reached on this question during past centuries of biological thought. The vast numbers of test-cases collected during the last twenty years, and proved to the hilt, entirely dispose of the idea that boys only can be conceived after a period.

But it so happens that girls, if conceived after a period, generally start during the so-called “fruitless” month. Innumerable cases may be cited of girls conceived on the fifth and sixth, seventh and eighth day of period. This is much to be regretted, for it is easy to see that an ovum fertilised during the actual flow of a menstrual period has not the best chance of growing and developing into a healthy infant. The womb is in a perturbed state, and its lining hardly offers a suitable bed on which the delicate ovum can rest.

The Old Testament has warned us sufficiently against this evil. Abortions are liable in the early months of pregnancy, and everywhere we see the results of such intercourse. Many women with skin troubles, blotches, or marked with the ugly “port-wine stain,” or nævus spot, are examples of relations at this period. To every hundred women thus disfigured you will find scarcely one man. Another result of this unwise intercourse is a large number of big moles all over the face, especially on the left side. The fact that this condition is rarely found in men shows that the conception of boys during actual period is very rare, if not almost unknown. The earliest date recorded of boy-conception is the third evening of period. The seventh day is the earliest date probable after menstruation, counting from the first day.

When one realises that conception at the menstrual period is actually due to a morbid condition of the uterus, dependent on a slightly abnormal ovary, one can gauge the undesirability of risking the advent of such offspring. Indeed, it is important that the self-respecting mother should see that no child of hers be tainted with the reproach of the premature intercourse above described.

If girls are conceived in the first three days after period (during the sixth, seventh, eighth days), that is another matter: they may be the healthy offspring of a slightly abnormal mother who generally can only conceive at that one time. For instance, Lady D. writes:

I can never start a baby at any time except immediately after my period. It is always “early” and too profuse.... I have three girls, and do not seem able to have a boy.

It should, however, be understood clearly that no woman, in a normal healthy state, conceives girls in the “fruitless month.” Invariably all the cases observed of this nature occur among women suffering from the results either of a severe boy-confinement, or an abortion which has seriously affected the male ovary and left it in a diseased state. Again it may happen where the right ovary is naturally weak or has been injured in early youth. From India, a lady writes:

I have a little girl ... but I had several miscarriages before she arrived, from which I have never rightly recovered. It was partly the climate, and also I did far too much....

Mrs. B. wrote to me from East Africa:

I shall be forty next birthday. My first was a girl, then came a boy born at six months, who only lived a few hours, and I was desperately ill. Then came three girls in succession.

With regard to the offspring of the freak ovary, there certainly seems to result a less healthy pregnancy all the way through, a more difficult and generally premature confinement, and a smaller and weaker infant. I should add, however, for the comfort of mothers, that these children, given suitable environment, often grow up to be as fine and healthy as those generated from a more normal ovary.

It is only right to acknowledge that, in the researches which have enabled me to fathom the complex problem of the “freak” ovary, my best friend has often proved to be my sex. It takes a thief to catch a thief—it required the intuitive brain of a woman to understand another woman, and to investigate with success the most capricious of her organs.

XIII

LATERAL DECUBITUS

“Lie on the right for a boy, on the left for a girl.”—ALBERTUS MAGNUS.

Whenever I am asked to provide a formula for the benefit of those seeking advice on the subject of pre-determination, I have always expressed the opinion that a slight inclination to the right, during and after intercourse, is helpful to the conception of boys, and vice versa for girls. No doubt this flavours of an “old wives’ tale,” and is not new to many married folk. Indeed, it was known as far back as 1582, when Albertus Magnus gave his support to the theory, which subsequently remained a more or less popular idea. At the same time, it is interesting to note that anatomy supports this time-honoured theory in every way. Stock-breeders still make use of it when they place a mare or cow on ground sloping away from the side they wish fertilised. But it succeeds only when they happen to fall on the month suitable to the discharge of the ovum desired.

When I touch on the relation of animals to my theme I do not mean to imply that they function on parallel lines to women, as regarding the alternate month. It is true that the principal laws of nature apply to them in similar fashion, but in this case there is a distinct difference. A certain veterinary surgeon was, in a hundred cases, successful in the use of “side-sloping” with cattle, but the lack of further knowledge concerning times and dates produced the small number of exceptions which acted as a deterrent to renewed efforts in this direction. And yet there should really be no difficulty as to times and dates, the only problem being to select the male month or the female.

Thus a heifer should be watched from the time of the first “rut,” which means the activity of the left ovary. Her times, right and left, should be systematically noted from then on, until she goes to the bull. If the first calf be a heifer, the next heat will accompany activity of the right ovary. A month should be skipped (a good thing in itself for the vitality of her next progeny) and the following heat fertilised if another heifer is required. A well-known doctor in South Africa made observations on a cow he owned in 1897 which had a bull-calf at foot; she had a heifer-calf the next year. He then tried the experiment of missing the next rut—that is twenty-one days after the birth of the heifer, by keeping the cow stalled for a month. She was then allowed to mate, with the result that the next calf was a heifer. He repeated this three times in succession, each time obtaining a heifer. To prove that the cow was normal he allowed her to mate within three weeks of the birth of the last heifer and she gave a bull-calf. This satisfied him that sex can be regulated at will, and that the whole question lies within the functions of the female. That is just one clear case in point, but innumerable similar successes have been recorded by others who have experimented on these lines. The differences of the organic functions of a mare or cow explain why there can be no question of “before or after,” as in the case of women. But one thing I have observed, and that is the importance of taking advantage of the early “heat” to ensure success for a heifer, while the later “heat,” or the second day of the “heat” is more suitable for a male pregnancy.

With regard to the position of the fœtus in the cow, there is a marked difference according to the sex of the fœtus. If heavy with bull-calf, she will usually lie on her right side; similarly it will be noticed that the weight and movements are much more to the right and the side will be most inclined to hang. With female progeny the conditions are reversed. The left side is now the largest and heaviest, and the cow will lie on it most readily.

In animals producing numerous offspring each time, such as cats, rabbits, etc., both ovaries function simultaneously. The spermatozoa must run equally into both sides of their uterus, for the reason that it is not a simple cavity, but divided by a deep cleft into two parts with a corresponding projection inside the cavity. Therefore, as cats and rabbits have litters of mixed sexes, it is impossible to draw inference beforehand as to their condition.

Then, just as two conditions, time and position, are necessary for the successful fertilisation of cattle, so must the three following conditions be accepted by women, if the results are to be what they desire:

1. The fruitful month must be assured. This cannot be foretold until after the birth of the first child, but it is of little importance compared with the second and third conditions.

2. The day, in the fruitful month, proper to the sex desired must be carefully chosen.

3. The inclination to right or left, which assists access of the seminal fluid to the male or female Fallopian tube must be observed.

Among all the theories for sex-determination advanced of late years, that concerning Lateral Decubitus is the best supported by evidence. Dr. R. von Braun discovered the earliest evidence of pregnancy in a furrow which forms and divides the uterus into two lateral halves differing in shape, the pregnant half and the non-pregnant. Montgomery speaks of a “boy conceived after the period” and lying “in the right iliac region,” whose mother had complained of muscular pains “round the right Fallopian tube.” Dr. Tuckey, on several occasions, found that the position of the placenta, (the vascular bed to which the fœtus is attached and through which it is nourished) differed according to the sex of the fœtus. It was, in many instances, attached to the left side of the mid-line when the child was a girl, to the right when it was a boy, Montgomery mentions also that a “female fœtus is turned towards the left side.” There is much evidence to show that a girl fœtus is always carried in this position, while the boy faces to the right. Hence the movements are felt towards the left with a girl and towards the right with a boy.

It may often be observed that a woman starting a female pregnancy is quite unconsciously inclined to hold her left side, as if experiencing a slight discomfort. With her, the first movements of the child will be felt in the left groin, while in a boy-pregnancy the opposite will be the case. I have by me a letter from a Mrs. B., which runs as follows: