Plain Facts for Old and Young

by John Harvey Kellogg

The testimony of all nature, as almost universally admitted by scientific men, is that life originated through a creative act by the first Great Cause, who gave to certain bodies the requisite arrangement or organization to enable them to perform certain functions, and delegated to them the power to transmit the same to other matter, and thus to perpetuate life. The Creator alone has the power to originate life. Man, with all his wisdom and attainments, cannot discover the secret of organization. He may become familiar with its phenomena, but he cannot unravel, further, the mystery of life. The power of organizing is possessed only by the lower class of living or organized bodies, those known as vegetable organisms or plants. A grain of wheat, a kernel of corn, a potato, when placed under favorable conditions, takes the inert, lifeless particles of matter which lie about it in the earth and air, and organizes them into living substances like itself.

To man and animals the Creator delegated the power to form their own peculiar structures from the vitalized tissues of plants. Thus, both animal and vegetable life is preserved without the necessity of continued acts of creative power, each plant and each animal possessing the power not only to preserve its own life, but also to aid, at least, in the perpetuation of the species. The record of creation in Genesis harmonizes perfectly with this view, it being represented that God formed (organized or arranged) man, animals, and vegetable productions from the earth.

[Simplest Form of Generation.]—Deep down beneath the waters of the ocean, covering its bottom in certain localities, is found a curious slime, which, under the microscope, is seen to be composed of minute rounded masses of gelatinous matter, or protoplasm. By watching these little bodies intently for a few minutes, the observer will discover that each is a living creature capable of moving, growing, and assuming a variety of shapes. Continued observation will reveal the fact that these little creatures multiply; and a more careful scrutiny will enable him to see how they increase. Each divides into two equal parts so nearly alike that they cannot be distinguished apart. In this case the process of generation is simply the production of two similar individuals from one.

A small quantity of slime taken from the surface of a stone near the bottom of an old well, or on the seaside, when placed under the microscope, will sometimes be found to contain large numbers of small, round, living bodies. Careful watching will show that they also multiply by division; but before the division occurs, two cells unite to form one by a process called conjugation. Then, by the division of this cell, instead of only two cells, a large number of small cells are formed, each of which may be considered as a bud formed upon the body of the parent cell and then separated from it to become by growth an individual like its parent, and, like it, to produce its kind. In this case, we have new individuals formed by the union of two individuals which are to all appearance entirely similar in every particular.

Sex.—Rising higher in the scale of being, we find that, with rare exceptions, reproduction is the result of the union of two dissimilar elements. These elements do not, in higher organisms, as in lower forms of life, constitute the individuals, but are produced by them; and being unlike, they are produced by special organs, each adapted to the formation of one kind of elements. The two classes of organs usually exist in separate individuals, thus giving rise to distinctions of sex; an individual possessing organs which form one kind of elements being called a male, and one possessing organs for the formation of the other kind of elements, a female. The sexual differences between individuals of the same species are not, however, confined to the sexual organs. In most classes of plants and animals, other sexual differences are very great. In some of the lower orders of animals, and in many species of plants, the male and female individuals are so much unlike that for a long time after they were well known, no sexual relation was discovered.

[Hermaphrodism.]—An individual possessing both male and female organs of reproduction is called an hermaphrodite. Such a combination is very rare among higher animals; but it is by no means uncommon among plants and the lower forms of animal life. The snail, the oyster, the earth-worm, and the common tape-worm, are examples of true hermaphrodites. So-called human hermaphrodites are usually individuals in whom the sexual organs are abnormally developed so that they resemble those of the opposite sex, though they really have but one sex, which can usually be determined with certainty. Only a very few cases have been observed in which both male and female organs were present.

There is now living in Germany an individual who bears the name of a woman; but learned physicians have decided that the person is as much man as woman, having the organs of both sexes. What is still more curious, this person has the feelings of both sexes, having loved at first a man, and afterward a woman. There have been observed, also, a very few instances of individuals in whom the sexual organs of neither sex were present. It thus appears that a person may be of both sexes or of no sex at all.

[Sex in Plants.]—To one unacquainted with the mysteries of plant life and growth, the idea of attaching sexuality to plants seems very extraordinary; but the botanist recognizes the fact that the distinctions of sex are as clearly maintained in the vegetable as in the animal kingdom. The sexual organs of the higher orders of plants are flowers. That part of the flower which produces seeds answers to the female; another part, which is incapable of forming seeds, answers to the male. The fertile and sterile flowers are sometimes produced on separate plants. Very frequently, they are produced upon separate parts of the same plant, as in the oak, walnut, and many other forest trees, and Indian corn. In the latter plant, so familiar to every one, the "tassel" contains the male flowers, and the part known as the "silk," with the portion to which it is attached—which becomes the ear—the female or fertile flowers. In a large number of species, the male and female organs are combined in a single flower, making a true hermaphrodite.

[Sex in Animals.]—As previously remarked, individuals of opposite sex usually differ much more than in the character of their sexual organs only. Among higher animals, the male is usually larger, stronger, and of coarser structure than the female. The same contrast is observed in their mental characters. With lower animals, especially insects, the opposite is often observed. The female spider is many times larger than the male. The male ant is small in size when compared with the female. Nevertheless, in all classes of animals the difference in the structure and the functions of the sexual organs is the chief distinguishing character. These differences are not so great, however, as they might at first appear. The male and female organs of reproduction in man and other animals, which seem so dissimilar, when studied in the light shed upon this subject by the science of embryology, are found to be wonderfully alike in structure, differing far more in appearance than in reality, and being little more than modifications of one general plan. Every organ to be found in the one sex has an analogue in the other which is complete in every particular, corresponding in function, in structure, and usually in position.