Sex as a Genetic Characteristic and a Genic Expression

Abstract

Throughout the ages was no lack of explanations for the cause of sex determination, and the influences which make one organism male, the other female, and yet another bisexual. The search was principally applied to man himself and has been therefore for a long time completely statistical. Geddes and Thomson (1889) estimated the number of theories put forward before the beginning of the nineteenth century as 500, and in the nineteenth century itself many investigators added new ones to this number. All these different hypotheses (none were more), could very well be classified into three groups (Haecker, 1902), i.e. progamous, syngamous and epigamous sex-determination. The advocates of the first group believe that some circumstance or other is present in the egg-cell by which it is predestined to become either a male, female or bi-sexual individual. The syngamous sex-determination should take place at the moment of fertilization, at which moment, by means of the concurrence of tendencies (present in the egg-cell and spermatozoon), it should be decided which of these tendencies is winning. The supporters of the epigamous sex-determination on the other hand, considered the fertilized egg-cell as a neutral area in which the decision with regard to its sex should be confined to later influences of its environment.