Scientific Proceedings (120). 



86 (1833) 



Effect of prostatectomy on integration of muscular movements of 



the white rat. 



By D. I. MACHT and J. L. ULRICH. 



[From the Pharmacological and Physiological Laboratories , 

 Johns Hopkins University, and the Brady Urological 

 Institute, Baltimore Md.] 



An attempt to study the effect of prostatectomy on muscular 

 coordination and efficiency was made by means of the so-called 

 "rope problem." White albino rats are trained to walk across 

 a room over a tightly stretched rope starting from a platform at 

 one end and ending at another platform on which food is placed 

 at the other end of the room. This problem or method of study 

 is an excellent one for the development of muscles and training 

 of their coordination. The animals at first cannot cross the rope 

 at all and slip off it repeatedly, hanging by the front legs. After 

 fifty trials, however, they learn to coordinate their movements and 

 eventually can run over the entire length of the rope rapidly and 

 without swaying or slipping off. After such a prolonged trial one 

 notices a marked improvement in the tonus and strength of the 

 entire musculature of the animals. In the present investigation 

 the effect of prostatectomy was studied on the coordination of 

 muscular movements. Two sets of experiments were performed. 

 In the one group of rats, the animals were trained on the rope 

 until they mastered the problem perfectly. They were then 

 prostatectomized and allowed to recover. After recovery the 

 animals were quickly retrained and it was found that there was 

 no evident change in the integration of muscular movements 

 produced by the extirpation of the prostate glands. In the second 

 set of experiments, another group of rats were prostatectomized 

 after seven trials on the rope before they had completely mastered 

 the problem. The animals were allowed to rest and after recovery 

 from the operation training on the rope was again begun. It was 

 soon noticed that this group of rats learned to run across the rope 

 very poorly and indeed after even a much longer period of training 

 than the first group of rats (80 trials) in this second group of 



