Ancient men emphasized on the extraneous factors as deciding the sex of the new born rather than any inherent potentiality of the individual According to Conway Zirkle (1951) the most distinguished genetic historian; there were three fantastic beliefs among ancient people regarding sex determination.
According to this, the two testicles of man are more than a coincidence in that one helps in the production of male while the semen from the other produces female and quite justifiably of course, the right testicle produced the dominant sex male and the left the female.
This was the idea of sex determination among ancient Hebrews. Another funny notion regarding sex determination was that the sex of the new born depended upon the aggressive sexual behaviour of one of the parents.
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Accordingly an effeminate man produces only daughters. The third and the funniest notion among the three is that of the role played by the direction of the wind at the time of mating.
Males would be produced when north wind blew and females would be engendered if south wind blew.
Even the great Aristotle believed in this view some of the ancient philosophers like Hippocrates believed that the sex of the offspring depended upon the ripeness of the ovum at the time of fertilization.
If an egg is fertilized soon after ovulation, the individual would be female, on the other hand if the egg remains in the oviduct for sometime before’ fertilization, the resultant individual would be male.
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Galen believed that the ovary of the right side produced males while the left ovary produced females Schenk an Austrian scientist believed that high dose of nutrition to the pregnant mother produced male individuals, while reduced nutrition to the would be mother resulted in female individual.
The theories and opinions mentioned above are only of historic interest and do not have any scientific basis.