148 WALTER LAWRENCE. 



newly acquired degenerating epithelium which should be found 

 all along the passage. Were the whole to remain unchanged 

 the epididymis would be ballooned up with both the old and 

 newly acquired contents. The fact is the most of the sperma- 

 tozoa present in the epididymis at the time of operation remain 

 there, and are seen in various stages of degeneration within this 

 organ. Likewise other germinal cells may be identified in the 

 epididymis undergoing a more rapid degeneration than that 

 seen in the case of the spermatozoa. We are left with little 

 doubt that practically all the germinal epithelium of the testis 

 and spermatozoa in the epididymis are absorbed directly from 

 these organs into the blood stream after degeneration and 

 liquefaction. As a further proof of this, if any is needed, sperma- 

 tozoa which escape into the vas deferens which is markedly less 

 vascular than the epididymis, require a much longer time for 

 absorption than those retained in the ductuli efferentes. 



And what of the effect of all this absorption on the organism? 

 McCartney ('23) states that he was able to produce sterility in 

 rats through injection of spermatozoa, and in a second article 

 he states: "In the male rat vasoligation may be followed by 

 the development of antibodies for semen in the blood." It is 

 admitted that if the first is true the second would seem plausible. 

 In my work ten pigs were operated in which one testis was 

 elevated to the abdominal cavity, the opposite retaining its 

 normal relation in the scrotum. The operated testes were 

 allowed to remain for from six to sixty-four days in the abdominal 

 cavity. Varying amounts of degeneration had taken place with 

 the absorption of these products together with the spermatozoa 

 present at the time of operation, and in not a single case was the 

 spermatogenic activity in the opposite testis affected, nor was 

 there any noticeable change in the testicular or epididymal 

 contents from the normal. 



Concerning the viability of spermatozoa so much has been 

 said that any attempt to review the literature here would be 

 futile. Be it said that reports vary from a few hours for the 

 boar sperm in the sows uterus (Anderson, '22) to 21 days for 

 the human sperm in the female uterus (DeLee, '21). In my 

 observations I have found a fairly definite relation between 



