Many years had elapsed. The young lady had ripened into a stately matron, and told me that she had the happiness to be the mother of five daughters and a son. I am altogether without the statistics necessary to deduce from a great number of similar cases the average relative number of the sexes born of women suffering from diabetes. But this must be pointed out, that, notwithstanding the high percentage of sugar excreted in the case of women suffering from pronounced diabetes, female offspring do not necessarily always appear. They will probably be in a very striking majority when compared with the males, but the complete disappearance of the male sex is not to be anticipated, because male individuals, though in the minority, can appear. And this was to be anticipated, seeing that in the so-called slighter cases of this complaint the abnormal metabolism can be sensibly improved by attention to diet.
Diabetes amongst women has a marked influence upon the functions of the sexual organs. Thus, for example, the menses cease, a condition which, according to gynæcologists, is occasioned by an abnormal condition of the womb and of the ovaries which become atrophied. (Schauta.) On the other hand, diabetes may also result from diseases of the reproductive organs. (Imlach.) When the cause of the complaint is removed from the female genitals the sugar also disappears from the urine.
From both of these facts, which rest upon medical observation, it follows that the excretion of sugar has some definite connection with the processes at work in the female generative organs. In the cases when the excretion of sugar continues for a considerable time, it is of greater significance, and indicates chronic derangement of the metabolism, in connection with which a serious change comes over the internal organs of generation.
Now, if there is a possibility that disturbances so extensive can be set up in the female genital tract when there is an excretion of sugar, it is also very possible that certain modifications may be produced by a small _constant_ excretion of sugar. These changes can show themselves in the ovum to this extent, that they may be of considerable significance and not without influence upon the development of sex.