8 ON GERMINAL TRANSPLANTATION IN VERTEBRATES. 



4. NEW OBSERVATIONS ON OVARIAN GRAFTING. 



In this paper we shall report upon seventy-four cases of homoplastic 

 ovarian grafting in guinea-pigs and seventeen similar cases in rabbits. 

 The purpose of the experiments represented by these cases has been stated 

 in the introduction. 



The operative technique in the guinea-pig was as follows: The hair of 

 the female to be grafted was removed from each side at the costal border. 

 She was then anesthetized and was castrated through an incision on each 

 side, about an inch long, at the costal border and usually a little ventral to 

 the ovarian site. The ovary was drawn into the field with blunt forceps 

 and lifted with a small, double eye-hook, after having been carefully shelled 

 out from the tube and mesentery. The organ was then cut away, care 

 being taken not to damage the tube. The animal from which grafts were 

 to be taken was then quickly killed and its ovaries removed, but with a small 

 bit of mesentery attached. The ovaries themselves did not come into con- 

 tact with any instrument. They were attached by means of very fine silk 

 (00 untwisted into thirds) and a header's needle, to various sites in the 

 peritoneal cavity. Some even were merely dropped into the abdominal 

 cavity. The muscles and skin were closed separately. At first two opera- 

 tions were made for each animal; but this was soon found to be unneces- 

 sary. The mortality was very slight. Out of the seventy-four cases six 

 died as the immediate result of the operation; four of these were cases in 

 which a ventral incision was tried. 



To sum up the result of the entire series, only one* grafted animal had 

 young from her grafted tissue; gTafted ovaries functioned in six other cases, 

 but did not produce young. Ten animals regenerated their own ovaries, 

 and three of these had young. Forty-two showed post-mortem complete 

 atrophy of the genital tract and absence of ovarian tissue. The remainder 

 comprises fifteen cases in which results were not fully determined. 



It is thought worth while to give an account of all the groups, because, 

 though only one* case, Group I, bears on the problem before us, the series 

 may have some physiological significance on account of its very consider- 

 able size, and may throw a side-light upon what criteria are necessary in 

 such work. 



Group I. 



This group includes homoplastic transplantation of an ovary resulting 

 in the birth of young derived from grafted tissue. On January 6, 1909, 

 the left ovary was removed from an albino guinea-pig, No. 27 (fig. 2, pi. l), 

 then about 5 months old, and the ovary of a pure black guinea-pig (compare 

 fig. 1, pi. l), about a month, old was fastened near the tip of the uterine 

 horn, distant a centimeter or more from the site of the ovary removed. One 

 week later, January 13, a second operation was performed, in which the 

 right ovary of the albino was removed, and as a graft was introduced the 



A second case, from a new series of experiments, has just been observed (January, 

 1911); see Postscript, p. 10. 



