by Zavadovskii, Prof. Mikhail Mikhailovich (1891-1957)
Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1922. Large octavo (25.5 × 17 cm). Original printed boards; 255 pp. With 20 colored plates and 126 illustrations throughout the text. Presentation copy, inscribed by Zavadovsky to Prof. Dr. Brandes on the ffep: "An vielverehrten Herrn Prof. Dr. Brandes, M. Zavadovsky, Russland, Moscau Universität, Zoologisches Museum." Corners and edges lightly scuffed; rear board lightly soiled; with pencil annotations, most likely by Brandes; else very good. First edition of this study of sexual characteristics, based on a long series of experiments in chickens and other animals (both domestic and laboratory). Zavadovsky employed castration and transplantation of sex glands, concluding "that some of the secondary sexual characteristics depend on their development in the hormones of the sex glands and that some are independent of it... Zavadovsky investigated the interrelationships between secondary sexual characteristics and the sex glands and studied the interaction of the endocrine glands. He concluded that a ± mutual influence exists: an organ that stimulates another also is inhibited by it. This was an important application to biology of the cybernetic principle of positive or negative feedback" (Dictionary of Scientific Biography). This copy was presented to Prof. Gustav Brandes (1862-1941), a prominent German zoologist active in Halle and Dresden. One of 3000 copies.
(Inventory #: P003034)
(617) 350-7778
