Sex and Society: Studies in the Social Psychology of Sex. William Isaac Thomas
women.
A committee reported to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1894,45 that of some 50,000 children (26,287 boys, and 23,713 girls) seen personally by Dr. Francis Warner (1892–94) 8,941 were found defective in some respect. Of these, 19 per cent. (5,112) were boys, and 16 per cent. (3,829) were girls.
An examination of 1,345 idiots and imbeciles in Scotland by Mitchell showed the following distribution of the sexes:
| Male | Female | Male | Female | |
| Idiots | 430 | 284 | or 100 | to 66.0 |
| Imbeciles | 321 | 310 | or 100 | to 96.5 |
showing that "the excess of males is much greater among idiots than among imbeciles; in other words, that the excess of males is most marked in the graver forms of the disease."46
A census of the insane in Prussia in 1880 showed that 9,809 males and 7,827 females were born idiots. Koch's statistics of insanity show that in idiots there is almost always a majority of males, in the insane, a majority of females. But the majority of male idiots is so much greater than the majority of female insane that when idiots and insane are classed together there remains a majority of males.47 Insanity is, however, more frequently induced by external conditions, and less dependent on imperfect or arrested cerebral development. Mayr has shown from statistics of Bavaria that insanity is infrequent before the sixteenth year; and even before the twentieth year the number of insane is not considerable.48 In insanity the chances of recovery of the female are greater than those of the male, and mortality is higher among insane men than among insane women. There is practical agreement among pathologists on this point.49 Campbell points out in detail50 that the male sex is more liable than the female to gross lesions of the nervous system—a fact which he attributes to the greater variability of the male.
An excess of all other anatomical anomalies, except cleft palate, is reported among males. Manley reports that of 33 cases of harelip treated by him only 6 were females.51 It appears also that supernumerary digits are more frequent in males. Wilder52 has recorded 152 cases of individuals with supernumerary digits, of whom 86 were males, 39 females, and 27 of unknown sex. A similar relation, according to Bruce, exists in regard to supernumerary nipples.53
Muscular abnormalities, monstrosities, deaf-mutism, clubfoot, and transposition of viscera are also reported as of commoner occurrence in men than in women.54 Lombroso states that congenital criminals are more frequently male than female.55 Cunningham noted an eighth (true) rib in 14 of 70 subjects examined. It occurred 7 times in males and 7 times in females, but the number of females examined was twice as large as the number of males.56 The reports of the registrar-general show that for the years 1884–88, inclusive, the deaths from congenital defects (spina bifida, imperforate anus, cleft palate, harelip, etc.) were, taking the average of the five years, 49.6 per million of the persons living in England for the male sex, and 44.2 for the female.57
It has already been noted as a general rule throughout nature that the male seeks the female and physicians generally believe that men are sexually more active than women,58 though woman's need of reproduction is greater,59 and celibacy unquestionably impresses the character of women more deeply than that of man. Additional evidence of the greater sexual activity of man is furnished by the overwhelmingly large proportion of the various forms of sexual perversion reported by psychiatrists in the male sex.
Pathological variations do not become fixed in the species, because of their disadvantageous nature, but their excess in the male is, as we have seen in the case of variations which have become fixed, an expression of the more energetic somatic habit of the male.
A very noticeable expression of the anabolism of woman is her tendency to put on fat. "Women, as a class, show a greater tendency to put on fat than men, and the tendency is particularly well marked at puberty, when some girls become phenomenally stout."60 The distinctive beauty of the female form is due to the storing of adipose tissue, and the form even of very slender women is gracefully rounded in comparison with that of man. Bischoff found the following relation between muscle and fat in a man of 33, a woman of 22, and a boy of 16, all of whom died accidentally and in good physical condition:
| Man | Woman | Boy | |
| Muscle | 41.18 | 35.8 | 44.2 |
| Fat | 18.2 | 28.2 | 13.9 |
The steatopyga of the women of some races and the accumulation of adipose tissue late in life are quasi-pathological expressions of this tendency.
In tracing the transition from lower to higher forms of life, we find a great change in the nature of the blood, or what answers to the blood, and the constitution of the blood is some index of the intensity of the metabolic processes going on within the organism. The sap of plants is thin and watery, corresponding with the preponderant anabolism of the plant. "Blood is a peculiar kind of sap," and there is almost as much difference between this sap in warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals as between the latter and plants. Rich, red blood characterizes the forms of life fitted for activity and bursts of energy. In his exhaustive work on the blood Hayem has given a summary of the results of the investigations of chemists and physiologists on the differences in the composition of the blood in the two sexes. Contrary to the assertion of Robin, Hayem finds that the white blood-corpuscles are not more numerous in women than in men, and he also states that the number of hæmatoblasts is the same in the two sexes. All chemists are agreed, however, that the number of red corpuscles is greater in men than in women. Nasse found in man 0.05824 of iron to 100, and in woman only 0.0499. Becquerel and Rodier give 0.0565 for man, 0.0511 for woman, and Schmidt, Scherer, and others give similar results. Welcker (using a chromometer) found between the corpuscles of man and woman the relation of 5 to 4.7, and Hayem confirmed this by numeration. Cadet found in woman on the average 4.9 million corpuscles per cubic millimeter, and in man 5.2 million. More recently Korniloff, using still another method—the spectroscope of Vierordt—has reached about the same result. The proportion of red blood-corpuscles varies according to individual constitution, race, and sex. In robust men Lacanu found 136 red corpuscles in 1,000; in weak men, only 116 in 1,000; in robust women, only 126 in 1,000; and in weak women, 117.61 Professor Jones has taken the specific gravity of the blood of above 1,500 individuals of all ages and of both sexes.62 An examination of his charts shows that the specific gravity of the male is higher than that of the female between the ages of 16 and 68. Between the ages of 16 and 45 the average specific gravity of the male is about 1,058, and that of the female about 1,054.5. At 45 years the specific gravity of the male begins to fall rapidly and that of the female to rise rapidly, and at 55 they are almost equal; but the male remains slightly higher until 68 years, when it falls below that of the female. The period of marked difference in the specific gravity of the blood is thus seen to be coincident with the period of menstruation in the female. A chart constructed by Leichtenstern, based upon observations on 191 individuals and showing variations