THE FEMALE SEX HORMONE AND THE GESTATIONAL GLAND

Abstract

In spite of the efforts of many investigators as well as of clinicians to obscure the issue by introducing complexities, the fact remains that the female genital tract still has but one purpose—that of reproduction. To accomplish this vital purpose periodic sex cycles occur, of which the fertile sex cycle, as we shall try to show, and not the infertile, or abortive cycle, is, and should be regarded, as the normal type. Carlson 1 has outlined these complexities. Our intention is to simplify the situation by reducing the essential facts to be considered to the fewest, and to demonstrate that these essential phenomena can be reproduced by extracts obtained from the ovarian follicle fluid, corpus luteum and placenta. The extracts so far prepared by us contain the female sex hormone in an as yet not fully pure state. The work here outlined is a preliminary communication which embraces not only