The structural changes observed in the testicles of aged persons ; The structural changes in the testicle of the dog when it is replaced within the abdominal cavity / by Joseph Griffiths.

  • Griffiths, Joseph, 1863-1945.
Date:
[1893]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The structural changes observed in the testicles of aged persons ; The structural changes in the testicle of the dog when it is replaced within the abdominal cavity / 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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    cease to be called into action, they [testicles] undergo a diminu- tion in size, their vessels grow less, and the seminiferous tubules become small, contracted, and partially obliterated, their place being supplied by fatty matter.” In a foot-note he makes the following additional remark:—“ In the testicles of old men the tubules are commonly found loaded with a dark granular sub- stance, the result of fatty degeneration.” No other person seems to have paid much attention to this subject until Arthaud, who, in 1886, published a thesis on the senile changes in the testicle. After describing briefly the changes that arise in the testicle during old age, he devotes his attention chiefly to the cystic formations that are found in many old persons in the globus major, or head of the epididymis. I may return to these and the like cysts in this neighbourhood in a subsequent paper. The changes that I have found in the testicles are the follow- ing:—The bulk of the organ is in most cases not much altered, though in some it is so considerably, and I have now under my care a man above ninety whose testicles are of quite the usual size. They usually become softer and more flaccid, and their tunics tend to become wrinkled as if too large for their contents. The internal structure, in those instances that are not much reduced in size, is either soft and yellowish, or granular and somewhat more firm than natural, the seminal tubules being less easily disentangled;—those instances in w'hich the body of the testicle is much reduced in size there are large irregular-shaped fibrous patches here and there, apparently containing no semi- nal tubules. The epididymis retains its normal size to the testicle; but commonly, in small well-defined areas, its tubules (coni vasculosi) are of a yellowish colour, like those of the seminal tubules; and occasionally in these altered patches, and also in other tubules of the head of the epididymis, are minute, translucent cysts, holding clear fluid devoid of spermatozoa. This yellowish appearance in the tubules of both testicle and epididymis is due to fatty ^generation of the epithelial con- tents of the tubules; and when the fatty change is observed in the one part it is usually present in the other. Thus the chief and commonest change met with in the testicles of the aged, so far as can be determined by the naked eye, is fatty transforma-