The New York herald., 1922-01-20

special Cnbtc 10 lTE NEW YORK HERALD.
Copyright, 1929. oy THE New YORK HnRALD
New York Herald Bureau.
London, Jan. 10. I
Boys will be boys. according to the
old saw, but girls may soon be boys,
according to Julian Huxley, grandson
of the great Huxley and himself a
brilliant young Oxford biologist. He
told the Royal Society of Arts some
thing of the scientists vision which
included the optimistic hope that it
will soon be possible to influence the
sex of child before birth.
He spoke of the sensational possi-
bility of relieving the world of its sur
plus of women and shaping life's deep
est mysteries with simple scientific
formula.
He talked of sex reversal in birds and
insects and hinted at the likelihood OF
success along this line with animals and
even the human animal. Prof Huxley
did not put it that way exactly. He
spoke of chromosomes, of nucleus and
gametes-a gamete is marrying cell
quite different from the Registrars Of
fce-and also gynandromorphs and
other things not found in the average
dictionary. but all the scientific terms
were used in explaining this process of
Juggling the sexes.
Prof. Huxley, who has long studied
two years ago by introducing vim and
hustle into the tadpole, causing Mexican
tadpoles to do surprising things in the
development of the species with the aid
of the thyroid gland
Discovers intermediate Sex.
Prof. Huxley said that DIR Crew had
discovered that in birds ae we'll as in
sects sex reversal might take place and
that normal hens had been developed to
have full male characteristics. This"
he said. raises the interesting possibil-
ity that we may be able to find sub
stances whose injection even into adults
may bring about change in SEX" He
said that what happened to change the
mental processes and behavior was inn
portant as reminder of what proc
esses are under the ccntrol of chem
ical substances.
Several results followed from the
N consideration of human sexual abnor-
mality in the light OF recent work with
animals" he said. There is distinct
theoretical possibility that cases of per-
version might be cured by injection or
grating. Secondly. II is highly possi-
BILE to have human intersexes which arc
neither male nor female. but definitely
intermediate in sex. If so, 1t must be
tA eli al 1Ix,
and the law should recognize this third
category.
I'VE are accustomed to visit a de-
parture from sexual normality with
legal penalty and moral censure If
many who depart from the normal are
simply in the grip Of blind hereditary
forces IL is clear that new standard
n needed to measure the whole matter.
Sets OF hereditary factors are like packs
OF cards, and each organism is given
two packs with which TO play the game
of life. But while an ordinary pack of
cards has fifty-two cards the different
hereditary factors are numbered by hun
dreds or liklier thousands. Each card
In the ordinary pack has fixed value,
but here the card may vary or mutate
and the variation may be of such. a
nature that the card is of more value
or less value in the game which is life.
May Transform Sex.
THE first and most startling thing
20 realize is that an individual prede-
termined for one sex may be transformed
into an individual of the other sex and
may beget offspringS normally in this
transformed conditiony
He explained this by the suggestion
that there was some simple difference in
the rate and chemical reaction between
sex factors or between strong and weak
races. He said that such strength or
weakness was only sign OF greater or
less rapidity in the production OF male
and femade determining substances. He
said Il was not only perfectly possible
but even probable, that maladjusted sex
factors may exist In man.
Statistical results" he added, "are
o. the highest interest II they turn out
TO correspond with reality and will pave
the way In n very large measure for
practical sex control of the human
race--a serious matter, for II this is not
properly regulated it might bring about
most revolutionary results
Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, who presided.
said that although Prof. Huxley had
not given any definite formulae K was
obvious that we were rapidly approach
ing the stage in which II will be possible