Abstract
An attempt is made in the following pages to present a concept of the pituitary-gonadal complex involved in the development of puberty and sexual maturity in experimental animals. The problem is discussed only in relation to the female, although data are available to warrant the conclusion that the principles are not different in the male. The superficial characters of the female, such as the rupture of the vaginal plate in rodents, with subsequent observation of the vaginal smear, make the successive stages of development more easily determined than in the male rodent. The rupture of the vaginal plate has been for some years accepted as a sign of sexual maturity. Usually, the first oestrus was considered in relation to the establishment of the vaginal orifice, and together were regarded as sexual maturity. Long and Evans (1) take as their standard the functional capacity of the animal to rear a first litter.
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