816 



THE MALE GENITAL TEACT. 



Blood-vessels are numerous in the testis, the capillaries pro- 

 ducing a reticulum around the seminiferous tubules. A closed 

 reticulum of lymphatics, twining around the tubules, has been 

 known since His, Kolliker, and others. 



THE TERMINATIONS OF THE NERVES IN THE TESTICLE. 

 BY H. G. BEYER, M. D., M. E. C. S., PASSED ASSISTANT SURGEON, U. S. N.* 



The only observations on the terminations of the nerves within the semi- 

 niferous tubules at present on record, are those of Letzerich.t He uses either 



fresh seminiferous tubules, or such 

 as have been in a solution of very 

 dilute chromic acid for the period 

 of twenty-four hours ; then he teases 

 them out carefully with needles, 

 and examines them under the mi- 

 croscope. Under "favorable cir- 

 cumstances," he finds that the 

 nerves approach the membrana 

 propria, perforate the same, and 

 finally terminate in granular masses 

 or knobs between the latter mem- 

 brane and the first layer of cells. I 

 must say that circumstances never 

 favored me in finding the struct- 

 ures pictured in the plates accom- 

 panying his article. In this I have 

 been no less unfortunate than Von 

 La Valette St. George. + 



The methods of investigation 

 followed out in my researches re- 

 quire a brief notice. The testicles 

 used were those of the dog, calf, 

 mouse, rat, rooster, and man. Both 

 teasing and section-cutting were 

 praticed ; the former method, how- 

 ever, I found quite superfluous. 

 The tissues from which the mate- 

 rial for study was collected were 

 both fresh and hardened, the hard- 

 ening being done by alcohol, chro- 

 mic or picric acid. The staining 

 agents which I found of most ad- 

 vantage were chloride of gold, osmic acid, picro-carmine, and eosin with 

 logwood. For the study of the nerve-fibers outside the seminiferous tubules, 

 and their plexuses around the tubules arising from the larger nerve-bundles 

 which pass along the small arterioles, osmic acid and picro-carmine have, in 



Printed in abstract from the author's manuscript. t " Virchow's Archiv," Bd. 42. 

 t "Strieker's Handbook of Histology." 



FIG. 371. TESTIS OF RAT. 



F, connective-tissue frame; E, irregular cu- 

 boidal epithelia, with rod-like formations of bio- 

 !>lasson ; H, epithelium, in which the rods have 

 assumed the shape of heads of spermatozoids: 

 >S', spermatozoids sprung from coalesced rows of 

 epithelia, some of which have furnished the 

 heads, others the tails, of the spermatozoids. 

 Magnified 600 diameters. 



