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For normally, with feminine puberty, there is an increased activity of the thyroid, the posterior pituitary and the adrenal medulla. These changes indeed constitute the formula of normal feminization. In the male, the ripening of the testes is accompanied or perhaps preceded by augmented function of the adrenal cortex and the anterior pituitary.

The uterus, nearly as large as in the adult female, lay between the bladder and rectum, and was enclosed between two layers of peritoneum, to which, on either side of the uterus, were attached the testes.

When animals are castrated there is enlargement of the ductless glands in the body, notably the thyroid and the suprarenal capsules. It is evident, therefore, that the secretions of these ductless glands are in some degree compensatory to those of the testes. But this compensatory action is inadequate to produce any sexual development in the absence of the testes.

With the decay of courtly chivalry and the rise of the prosperous citizen class, whose ideals and testes lay in a different direction, this epic shared the fate of many others of its kind, and was relegated to the dusty shelves of monastery or ducal libraries, there to wait till a more cultured age, curious as to the literature of its ancestors, should bring it forth from its hiding places.