How to plan your life
Adolescence and Adulthood
Childhood is a time of
nurture and protection, which gives place to puberty or adolescence, thence to
adult life.
Adolescence is a transition period when profound
physiological changes occur in the human body that leads to the appearance of
male and female secondary sex-characteristics.
In the human body, series of small areas of tissue with
highly specialized function (endocrine glands) are scattered all-over. These
glands discharge their secretions directly into the blood stream. Their shape
and functions very, it is the changes in the activities of these glands that
are mainly responsible for the phenomena of puberty or adolescence.
Male: the male sex mechanism after been dormant in the body for thirteen
years now begins to function slowly. The penis and the scrotum (two small oval
bodies called the testes) are the two principal organs of reproduction. The
scrotum, at the age of puberty begins to make a chemical which is passed into
the blood stream thence carried by the blood to all parts of the body.
Thus, this chemical is
responsible for the bodily changes that now occur (the development of muscles,
the growth of hair, and the deepening of the voice). The male cell of
reproduction called the sperms is also produced by the testes. Once the body
begins to produce sperms, it continues to do so until late in life. The sperms
pass into a tube called the sperm duct which curves around so that it joins on
to the tube leading from the bladder to the penis. This latter tube is called
the urethra, and it has two functions. It conducts to the penis the waste water
which accumulates in the bladder, and it also conducts the sperms which pass
into it through the sperm duct when they are needed.
Female: the
controlling force of the female body or “leader of the orchestra” as it has
been aptly named, is the pituitary gland (a mass of nerve tissue about the size
of a walnut at the base of the brain).
As adolescence is established and the glandular system
matures, a hormone or chemical messenger is secreted by the pituitary gland.
This is carried in the blood stream to the ovaries, in order to stimulate them
to activity, and a series of changes then occurs in the body which result in
the development of female secondary sex-characteristics (increase in the size
of the breasts, rounding of the hips, growth of pubic and axillary hair, and in
the phenomenon of menstruation). The menstruation is controlled in a rhythmical
way. It is a recurring effort on the part of the body to prepare for the
beginning of a new life and for its nesting and development.
