GRAFTING OF TESTICLES. 19 



Cheveau (1890) in a brief note described autoplastic testicular transplan- 

 tation, apparently of adult tissue, in sheep. He obtained nourishment of 

 the exterior of the testicle, but concludes that the operation is futile if the 

 testicle is really detached from its own blood-supply. 



A. Lode (1891) reported the results of experiments on cocks which were 

 castrated, their organs being- transplanted into subcutaneous connective tis- 

 sue. One cock eight months after operation revealed a tumor of bean size 

 under the skin. This appeared vascularized and contained living sper- 

 matozoa. Another cock, in which, after being caponized by a professional 

 caponizer, the testicles were thrown back into the body cavity, showed a 

 bean-sized testis attached to the peritoneum at the site of the old wound, 

 containing living spermatozoa. There were also numerous spermatozoa 

 contained in little testicles in various parts of the body cavity, which were 

 regenerated bits of the testicles, crushed in the process of caponizing. He 

 states that he always found testes remaining in capons, no matter how care- 

 fully castrated. This work therefore would allow one to make a somewhat 

 different interpretation of Berthold's work than he himself made: the sup- 

 posedly transplanted testicles may have been regenerated from fragments 

 never removed. 



Hanau (1897), also working on fowls, found difficulty in completely cas- 

 trating cocks, and showed that a small amount of the testicle, if left behind, 

 forms little capsules, containing sperm and embedded in connective tissue. 

 Testicles transplanted into hens were encapsulated and resorbed. 



In 1898 Goebell, questioning the results of Berthold, operated on g-uinea- 

 pigs and found that transplanted testes in the body-cavity became necrotic 

 after two days, except the most superficial layers, which showed mitoses. 



Herlitzka (1899), in a very critical paper, reports the results of the trans- 

 plantation of testicles in tritons. In all, 32 animals were used, 20 females 

 and 12 males. These experiments were in part planned to test the theory 

 of Ribbert (1898), who, working on a large series of rabbits, found degener- 

 ation to take place, or more correctly a process of regression to a more 

 primitive type of cell, both when bits of tissue were placed in lymph nod- 

 ules and when whole testicles, autoplastic or homoplastic, were fixed by a 

 peritoneal suture. Ribbert found that the epithelium of the efferent canals 

 resisted longer than the epithelium with specific function. He concluded 

 that transplantation of the testicles was not possible because there is con- 

 cerned a gland which discharges its secretion externally. 



To test this last theory Herlitzka used tritons both in winter stages and in 

 summer stages . The testicles were transferred from one animal to another, 

 and also to females ; and in some males one of the animal's own testicles 

 was left as a control. His results in brief were degeneration of the trans- 

 planted tissue under all conditions in from ten to fifty-two days, usually 

 about a month. The state of the testicle, whether resting or active, made 



