Any one, who keeps before him the fundamental principles of this theory, will see plainly that it is possible, under certain circumstances, to procure male progeny by means of the influence we have indicated. The wish to have female progeny is a desire for the gratification of which it is not at present possible to give any directions.
In connection with all that I have already said I will here mention that the method which I employed to procure the ripening of an ovum for male progeny in cases where I had previously found sugar normally present, which served as an indication for the application of my treatment, I attempted to apply also in the case of individuals with whom no trace of sugar was to be found. The method of proceeding, judging by my experiences thus far, should be as follows.
First of all, it must be elicited whether any special disease exists, and especially any that indicates anomalies in the metabolism. Of course capacity for generation and the possibility of conception are presupposed.
If the history of the case shows no circumstances that would hinder the application of the method, we inform the patient that she must furnish us with the urine necessary for the occasional examination. It is best to use for this purpose a urine glass marked in grammes and containing two litres, in which the urine of twenty-four hours is to be collected.
It is well at the beginning of the procedure to put a few drops of formaline into the measuring-glass, so that the urine may not, in consequence of standing, decompose, and so become unfit for accurate analysis. Of the collected quantity of twenty-four hours, about 200 grammes should be poured into a small phial, well corked, and used for analysis. In making the analysis it is best to proceed in the following order: First, we determine the reaction of the urine with litmus paper. In normal urine the reaction is generally acid. Next the specific gravity is determined. This is most easily done with Ultzmann’s urometer, by means of which the density of the urine can be easily determined. That varies in normal urine generally between 1015 and 1020. In exceptional cases it may sink very low, which often happens after much fluid has been taken. In other cases it rises under pathological circumstances enormously high, as, for example, in diabetes. In the case of a thorough preparation of the organism by the use of a great quantity of concentrated nitrogenous food with a view to influencing sex, the specific gravity very often reaches 1030 and more.
After the specific gravity we measure next the quantity of urine collected in the twenty-four hours.
We proceed next to determine the normal urine-sugar, and for this purpose use a number of the well-known tests—Nylander’s, the fermentation test, and Trommer’s test—which have been already described. If these give a positive result, we proceed to a quantitative examination by means of the polariscope. If the quantity of sugar found is very small, we exert ourselves to get rid of it by a suitable diet, because otherwise no certain influence over the embryo in the direction of the production of male offspring can be exercised. If, however, we find no sugar by any of the above tests, we seek for it by means of the phenylhydrazin test also described above. A few experiments on the melting point of the phenyl-glycosazon crystals will easily give us certain information. In the analysis we observe particularly whether the positive result of the phenylhydrazin test has originated from the sugar or from the reducing substances. With the polarization apparatus we determine the quantity of lævo-rotatory substances, the optical rotation, in per cents., as these stand in a certain relation to the reducing substances. We make these experiments with urine that has not been decolorized. The former becomes greater as the quantity of the latter increases.