[ 289 ] 
XLIX. On the Sarcocele of Egypt *. 
Tis word Sarcocelest is derived from the Greek (cage xyAy). 
Fabricius ab-Aquapendente, Fabricius Hildanus, Lanfranc, 
Fallopius, André de Lacroix, and others, have described this 
disease under the name of caro adnata ad testem. Since 
these authors, whose observations seem to relate to the sar- 
cocele of warm climates, modern surgeons have confounded 
it with diseases of the testis, such as swelling, inflamma- 
tion, scirrhus, hydrocele and hydrosarcocele. The etymo- 
logy of the word. sarcocele, and the signification which an- 
cient authors seem to attach to it, proves that this deno- 
mination belongs exclusively to that disease which distends 
beyond measure the teguments external to the testicle, par- 
ticularly the scrotum and dartos; and gives to these parts 
an extraordinary volume or size. The great number of 
individuals I have seen attacked with this complaint in 
Egypt confirms me in this opinion, and induces me to trace 
the causes, symptoms, progress, and effects, and to point 
out the means of relief, which are in the power of art... 
My researches into the nature of sarcocele induce me to 
believe that it is confined to warm climates, at least, that it 
is very rarely met with in cold regions, for the great num- 
ber of examples which we meet with in Europe are the pro- 
duce of Asia or Africa. The scrotal tumour of the minister 
Charles Delacroix is perhaps a single instance of sarcocele 
well marked which has taken place in our climates, and the 
volume of this tumour was small, in comparison of the 
cases of sarcocele related in the German Ephemeris for 1692, 
in Dionis’s chirurgical works, the Bibliotheque de Médecine, 
tome ix. and of those which I have seen with astonishment 
in Egypt, some of which weighed at least fifty pounds. I 
* From Mons. Larrey’s Rélation Chirurgicale de Vv Armée de Orient. 
+ Under the term sarcocele a disease is here described ditfering essentially 
from the affection which in this country has been designated by that appel- 
lation, ‘he sarcocele of Europe is a disease of the body of the testicle, 
liable to become seriously active from external accident, from irritating ap- 
a, and from incisions made into it when mistaken for hydrocele. 
ut we are assured in this memoir, that the sarcocele of Egypt and other 
hot climates, is a carneous mass enormous in size, possessing litt!e sensibility, 
having no other connexion with the testicle than being in its ncighbour- 
heod; bearing the potential and even the actual cautery, and suffering setons 
to be passed through it, with impunity; and occurring also in the female. 
The sarcocele of Europe is an organic disease of the testes; the sarcocele of 
Egypt is a disease of the scrotum and capsule of the testes in the male, and 
of the common teguments and cellular substance of the labia pudendi of the 
cent connected with elephantiasis, and being, possibly, one form of that 
isease. 
Vol. 37. No. 156, April 1811, + shall 
