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Dr. A. Lipschutz and others. 



hypertrophy of interstitial cells is to be found in the literature, in a paper 

 recently published by Poll (11), who described the degenerating testicles 

 of hybrids of birds. Anyone looking at a microscopical preparation of 

 some of our cases, and comparing it with a normal testicle (Plate 1, 

 fig. 1), would agree that the hypertrophy of the interstitial cells is here 

 excessive — as in some tumours described in the pathology of the testicle 

 in man. 



In view of this hypertrophy one might object that even in our smallest 

 particles there may have been a production of the sex specific secretion 

 no smaller than the normal. It is true we have no definite evidence that 

 the interstitial cells are the organ of internal secretion in the sexual glands ; 

 but there are so many facts showing that the interstitial cells have some- 

 thing to do with the internal secretion of these glands, that it is impossible 

 to avoid this objection when we discuss the quantitative problems in the 

 internal secretion of the sexual glands on the basis of experiments with 

 partial castration. Whether or not the interstitial cells are really the 

 organ of internal secretion in the testicle, the partial castration was, at any 

 rate in some cases, counteracted by an hypertrophy of this organ. 



We have some experimental evidence that this hypertrophy of interstitial 

 cells is not a compensatory one, i.e., that this hypertrophy is caused, not by 

 an exaggerated function of these cells for the body as a whole, but by local 

 conditions. 



II. 



The experimental evidence we have that the hypertrophy of the interstitial 

 tissue is not a compensatory one, is of four different orders. 



A. Going through all the cases where small particles of testicular substance 

 were sufficient for a masculinisation, in different degrees, of guinea-pigs, 

 we saw all transitions between a normal number of interstitial cells and a 

 highly augmented number of the latter. But there seemed to be no constant 

 relation between the number of interstitial cells and the degree of develop- 

 ment of the sexual characters. We will give in another paper a full 

 description of all our experiments with partial castration, considering them 

 from the point of view of the problem of the site of the function of internal 

 secretion in the testicle. Here only the following facts are of importance 

 for us : — 



(1) That there seems to be no constant relation between the number of 

 interstitial cells and the degree of masculinisation, although there does not 

 exist a case where masculinisation took place without fully developed 

 interstitial cells being present in the testicular fragment. 



(2) That a normal masculinisation is possible even when the number of 



