PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY OF THE TESTICLE 475 



Anomalies of Growth 



Atrophy of the Testicle. This heading includes the early atrophies 

 of the testis, and cannot be sharply defined from the fibrous atrophies 

 following degenerative changes in later life (see below). If the testicle 

 has once begun to develop, 

 and then regresses, one is 

 dealing with an atrophy, 

 rather than with absence, 

 no matter how small a 

 remnant may be left. Atro- 

 phies of the fetal period 

 produce a small fibrous 

 nodule, which may de- 

 scend into the scrotum. 

 They are probably usually 

 due to syphilis. Atrophies 

 of puberty, which are more 

 frequent, produce an infan- 

 tile, and later a fibrous tes- 

 ticle. They are really a 

 failure of the normal pre- 

 pubertal evolution. Since 

 the patients are both ster- 

 ile and impotent, the inter- 

 stitial cells are also in- 

 volved. Effeminacy may 

 be observed (Broca, 1877). 

 Some of these cases are un- 

 doubtedly due to disease, 

 with hypofunction, of the 

 pituitary body (see be- 

 'low). 



Hypertrophy of the Testicle. A certain degree of compensatory 

 hypertrophy may be observed when one testicle is lost in individuals below 

 the age of puberty. In one case, the remaining testicle weighed 60 gms. 

 (Simmonds (fr), 1910.) There is said to be an increase in the diameter 

 of the tubules. Hypertrophy never occurs after puberty. 



Diirck, Pick, and others have described cases in which extensive hyper- 

 plasias of the interstitial cells were seen. They have been noted at various 

 ages. The tubules are atrophied, and the interstitial cells comprise most 

 of the tissue, their mass being sufficient to make the atrophic testicle 

 almost as large as, and in one case larger than, the normal. Some of the 



Fig. 2. Interstitial cell hypertrophy, high power. 

 The granular cytoplasm, sometimes filled with small 

 vacuoles, of the interstitial cells, and the almost com- 

 plete degeneration of spermatogenic elements, can be 

 seen. (After Diirck. See references.) 





