126 Translation from De Graaf 



but never disappear completely; we have observed that the smallest 

 testicles of old women weigh one scruple. In newborn and young 



[^174] infants they usually weigh from five grains to half a scruple; and 

 therefore are smaller in these than in the very old, although most 

 anatomists say they are larger in infants and gradually diminish with 

 the thymus gland. In exceptional cases, however, the testicles grow 

 to a remarkable size and contain within them such a quantity of fluid 

 that they are dropsical: of which condition Schenck gives many ex- 

 amples in his observations, and Riolan and others, as well. 



Moreover, the coverings of these testicles differ much from the male, 

 for the latter are enveloped by many tunics, so that although hanging 

 freely, they are protected from all injury; but the former are not 

 altogether deprived of such protection, since they are invested by a 

 tunic peculiar to themselves, called dartos by Galen; which although 

 it is only moderately tough, is not easily removed from the substance 



C ^75 H of t^^^ testes, for it adheres to them as if continuous with their sub- 

 stance. 



A membrane arising from the peritoneum covers the upper part of 

 the [male] testicles and the blood vessels supplying them, and the same 

 is generally considered to be true also of the female testicles. Some, 

 however, who neither by boiling [the ovary] nor by any other artifice 

 have been able to distinguish this membrana propria from the peri- 

 toneum, by a different appearance, agree with us that the [female] 

 testes are covered with a single membrane originating from the peri- 

 toneum, and that it seems thicker [than the covering of the male 

 testis] because it is so much more firmly bound and united to the 

 [subjacent] parenchyma that one can scarcely see how it may be sepa- 

 rated from it or divided into many membranes; but since this is not a 

 matter of great importance, let us leave the decision as to the number 

 of these coverings free to everyone. 



[ 176 ^ When the covering of the testes is removed, their whitish substance 

 is revealed, which in every way differs from the substance of the male 

 testicles, for the former, excluding from consideration certain mem- 

 branes and nutritive vessels, are composed of seminal vessels which if 

 mutually joined to each other, would exceed twenty or even forty ells 

 in length; the testicles of women are not composed of similar vessels 

 and no one, diligent as he may be, can in the least separate them [into 

 vessels]. 



Their internal substance is chiefly composed of many membranes 

 and fibrils, loosely bound to one another, in the interstices of which 

 are found many bodies which are either normal or abnormal. The 

 normal structures, regularly found in the membranous substance of 

 the testicles just described, are vesicles full of liquor, nerves, and 



C 177!] nutritive vessels, which [that is, the blood vessels] run to the testes 



