14 



Scientific Proceedings (77). 



10 (1188) 



Histological study of the testes of guinea pigs showing lead 

 blastophthoria. Preliminary report. 



By Carl Vernon Weller, M.S., M.D. 



[From the Department of Pathology, University of Michigan.] 



In an earlier report we have shown that the continued adminis- 

 tration of small doses of lead produces a definite blastophthoric 

 effect in male guinea pigs; and that the lead blastophthoria thus 

 induced manifests itself in the offspring by a reduction of approxi- 

 mately twenty per cent, in the average birth weight, by an 

 increased number of deaths in the first week of life and by a 

 general retardation in development such that the offspring of 

 lead-poisoned males often remain permanently underweight. 

 The testes of these chronically lead-poisoned guinea pigs have 

 now been examined in sufficient numbers to warrant a preliminary 

 report. 



In a majority of the cases examined no histological differences 

 can be detected between the testes of lead-poisoned guinea pigs 

 and those of normal controls. Spermatogenesis appears to take 

 place along normal lines and at a rate which seems not unlike that 

 in normal pigs. This observation is in no degree incompatible 

 with a state of true blastophthoria since it is to be expected that 

 if fertilization takes place at all, the spermatozoa will show no 

 great variation from the normal as far as their appearance is 

 concerned. The reason for the inferiority of the offspring is to 

 be sought rather in qualitative changes in the germ plasm. 



In a limited group of instances, in which the male guinea pigs 

 became sterile during the administration of lead, histological 

 examination of the testes shows a complete aspermatogenesis 

 with marked atrophy and vacuolar degeneration of the germinal 

 epithelium. There is an attempt at cell division which results in 

 multinuclear giant cells, evidently comparable to spermatocytes, 

 but division of the protoplasm appears to lag behind that of the 

 nuclei and spermatids and spermatozoa are not produced. 



