Retained testes in man and in the dog / by Joseph Griffiths.

  • Griffiths, Joseph, 1863-1945.
Date:
[1894]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Retained testes in man and in the dog / by Joseph Griffiths. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    there is a period of rut. While the rutting season is at its height, that is, at a time when the testes are large and actively producing spermatozoa, the organs are in the scrotum or extra- abdominal; but, with the decline of the season, the testes dwindle and retire into the abdominal cavity, where they remain of small size until the return of the next period of rut. Accordingly in the first (persistently scrotal) group, the testes having reached the scrotum acquire their full size and sperma- tozoa-producing powers ; in the second (persistently abdominal) they retain their original position, and there attain their full size and spermatozoa-producing powers ; in the last (to and fro) group, the testes leave the abdomen temporarily for the scrotum, and while they are in the scrotum acquire and retain their full size and spermatozoa-producing powers, losing it again when they retire into the abdomen. Thus, in the last (to and fro) group, the testes may be said to be at one time in a state of activity, and at another in one of inactivity, the scrotal position being associated with activity, and the abdominal with inactivity. The structure of the testes in these two states, namely, in- activity and activity, are well illustrated in the hedgehog (Erinaceus europceus), an animal that has a rutting season which is at its height in midsummer; but the functional activity of these organs is in complete abeyance during the winter months. In midwinter the testes are abdominal, resting just over the brim of the pelvis, of small size and firm consistency, and all the accessory sexual glands, vesiculce seminciles and prostate, are likewise small and firm (see fig. 1). In midsummer, on the contrary, the testes are scrotal (inguinal) in position, of twice, at least, the length and breadth they were in winter, soft and pulpy, the seminal tubules bulging wherever the tunica albuginea is cut through. In the inactive testes the seminal tubules are only half, or even less, the diameter they attain in midsummer, and are not so closely packed together as when the testes are in full functional activity. Each tubule is at this stage a solid column of cells, there being no central lumen which, as well shown in figs. 3 and 4, is very large in the seminal tubules in midsummer. The tunica propria is perhaps thicker than natural. Lying
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