Читать книгу Porneiopathology - Robert James Culverwell - Страница 6

Testicles.—The testicles are two glandular oval bodies suspended in the scrotum. They furnish the male seed. They are supported by what is called the Spermatic Chord, which consists of the spermatic artery that supplies the testicle with arterial blood, whence the semen is concocted; the veins that return the superfluous blood, and the tube that conveys the semen to the urethra. The testicles are very liable to inflammation, and particularly to changes resulting from the wear and tear of human life—changes that not simply produce pain or inconvenience, but those whereby the power of the organs becomes partially if not wholly lost. A rather ample description of their complicated structure will show the necessity of attending to the earliest symptoms of disturbance. The testicles, in embryo, are lodged in the belly, but they gradually descend, and usually are found in the scrotum at birth. There are occasional exceptions, when one or even both testicles do not descend, but are retained in the groin. Mr. Hunter considered that their virility was thereby impaired, although such an opinion is negatived by numerous illustrations. The non-descent of the testicle, necessarily from its confined situation when in the groin, can not be so fully developed as where it is allowed to range in the scrotum. It is also exposed to accidents when retained, and cases have occurred where Hydrocele, a disease to be noticed hereafter, has ensued, producing much inconvenience, and occasionally the same has been mistaken for rupture. The testicles have several coats. The Scrotum should be considered as one, which is merely a continuation of the common integuments, exceedingly elastic, nearly destitute of fat, and possessing a peculiar contractile power of its own, whereby it can closely embrace the testicles, and at other times yield or become distended, as in hernia or hydrocele, to the size of a melon. The contractile powers of the scrotum have been assigned to the supposed presence of a muscle, which is merely a thickened cellular membrane, and called Dartos. It was stated that the testicles were suspended by their spermatic chords—their support is rendered more perfect by the presence of a muscle to each, that descends into the scrotum, and which is called the Cremaster—it is an expansion of one of the muscles of the abdomen, called the internal oblique, and it spreads itself umbrella fashion around the chord, over the upper part of the testicle, and its fibres extend ray-like over the other coats of the testicle—its office is to draw up the seminal organs during procreation.

The testicles, thus suspended, have two coats, one adhering closely, and the other loosely surrounding the former—between the two, a lubricating fluid is secreted, whereby the various movements of the body are permitted without injury; it is between these coats that water is secreted occasionally, constituting the disease known as hydrocele. The closely fitting coat is termed from its whiteness and density Tunica Albuginea—the other Tunica Vaginalis. These coverings are formed of that extensive membrane in the abdomen called the Peritonœum. The Tunica Albuginea which surrounds the testicle previous to its descent, accompanies it into the scrotum, propelling, as it were, the Tunica Vaginalis before it. On the descent of the testicles into the scrotum, the opening through which they passed becomes impermeably closed.

The annexed diagram will explain the coats and facilitate the understanding of subsequent descriptions.

1. Body of the Testicle. 2. Epididymis. 3. Vas Deferens. 4. Spermatic Artery. 5. Veins. 6. Cremaster Muscle 7. Tunica Albuginea. 8. Tunica Vaginalis. 9. Scrotum. 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 constituting the Spermatic Chord. View larger image

1. Body of the Testicle.

2. Epididymis.

3. Vas Deferens.

4. Spermatic Artery.

5. Veins.

6. Cremaster Muscle.

7. Tunica Albuginea.

8. Tunica Vaginalis.

9. Scrotum.

3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 constituting the Spermatic Chord.

When the coats of the testicle are taken off, it is found to consist of innumerable delicate white tubes, which when disengaged from the cellular membrane that connects them together, and steeped in water, exhibit a most astonishing length of convoluted vessels; they appear to consist of one continuous tube, convoluted in partitions of the cellular membrane. When the Tubuli come out from the body of the testicle, they run along the back of it and form a net work of vessels called Rete Testis; it is supposed that by the net work the semen is conveyed from the testicle. The continuations of this Rete Testis have been denominated Vasa Deferentia, which, ending in a number of Vascular Cones, constitute what is called the Epididymis. The Vasa Deferentia, after forming three conical convolutions, unite and form larger tubes, which ultimately end in one large excretory duct, called the Vas Deferens. The following description relates to the accompanying sketch.

a. Body of the Testicle. b. Tubuli Testis. c, c. Rete Testis. d. Vasa Deferentia. e. Vascular Cones. f. Epididymis. g. Vas Deferens. View larger image

a. Body of the Testicle.

b. Tubuli Testis.

c, c. Rete Testis.

d. Vasa Deferentia.

e. Vascular Cones.

f. Epididymis.

g. Vas Deferens.

The preceding completes the anatomical description of the Testicle. The semen is supposed to be secreted by the arteries that ramify among the seminal tubes; the last drawing exhibits the testicle as from the hand of the dissector. In life and in health the epididymis is attached to the testicle—the vas deferens passes up the chord, enters the abdomen, and, passing down into the pelvis, terminates in the vesiculæ seminales as already, but to be again, alluded to. The two subjoined drawings illustrate the testicles in their natural situation.

a. Body of the Testicle. b. Commencement of the Epididymis. c. End of ditto. d. Vas Deferens. View larger image

a. Body of the Testicle.

b. Commencement of the Epididymis.

c. End of ditto.

d. Vas Deferens.

In the larger figure the testicle is displayed as enveloped by its coverings, and in the lesser as stripped of them. The references serve for both.

We now come to speak of the Vesiculæ Seminales. It was just observed, that the Vasa Deferentia terminated in these structures. They are attached to the lowest and back part of the bladder, behind the Prostate Gland. The following drawing is the prelude to the description—It represents the Prostate Gland, the Vesiculæ Seminales and the Bladder.

a, a. Prostate Gland. b. Gland cut away to show the Ducts of the Vesiculæ. c. Ends of the Ducts. d, d. Cells of the Vesiculæ. e. Left Vas Deferens, also cut open to show its connexion with the Vesiculæ. f. Right Vas Deferens. g, g. Openings of the Vas Deferens and Vesiculæ into the Urethra. h. Bladder. i. Ureter. View larger image

a, a. Prostate Gland.

b. Gland cut away to show the Ducts of the Vesiculæ.

c. Ends of the Ducts.

d, d. Cells of the Vesiculæ.

e. Left Vas Deferens, also cut open to show its connexion with the Vesiculæ.

f. Right Vas Deferens.

g, g. Openings of the Vas Deferens and Vesiculæ into the Urethra.

h. Bladder.

i. Ureter.

The Vesiculæ Seminales appear like two cellular bags. They have two coats, the one called nervous, and the inner the cellular, a membrane divided into folds or ridges. The use of the vesiculæ is supposed to be, to act as reservoirs for the semen; but there are different opinions upon the subject, some contending that they furnish a fluid, not spermatic, but merely as an addenda to the seminal secretion; whereas others, who have examined the vesiculæ of persons who have suddenly died, have discovered all the essential qualities of the male seed therein; and, in fact, physiologists, who direct researches in these matters, advise such examinations as the surest means of obtaining, in a state of purity, the seminal fluid.

The Male Semen is a fluid of a starch-ish consistency and of a whitish color. It has a peculiar odor, “like that of a bone while being filed—of a styptic and rather acrid taste,” (for physiologists use more senses than one in these researches), “and of greater specific gravity than any other fluid of the body.” Shortly after its escape, “it becomes liquid and translucent;” if suffered to evaporate, it dries into scurfy-looking substance. By being examined through a powerful microscope it is ascertained to be animated by an infinite number of animalcules; but they are only present in healthy semen, and consequently that fact is taken as a criterion of the virility of the secretion.

President Wagner thus describes the germe of future animal life: “The seminal granules are colorless bodies with dark outlines, round and somewhat flattened in shape, and measuring from 1-300 to 1-500th of a line in diameter.” “The animalcules exist in the semen of all animals capable of procreation. They are diversified in form in all animals according to their species, but in man they are extremely small, scarcely surpassing the 1-50th, or almost the 1-40th of a line in breadth. This transparent and flattened body seldom exceeds from the 1-6th to the 1-800th of a line in length.”

The annexed drawing exhibits the granules and animalcules of a human male being magnified from 900 to 1,000 times:—

1. Animalcules of a man, taken from the Vas Deferens, immediately after death. 2. Seminal Granules. 3. A bundle of Animalcules, as grouped together in the Testicle. 4. Seminal Globule. 5. Same surrounded by a cyst or bag. View larger image

1. Animalcules of a man, taken from the Vas Deferens, immediately after death.

2. Seminal Granules.

3. A bundle of Animalcules, as grouped together in the Testicle.

4. Seminal Globule.

5. Same surrounded by a cyst or bag.

The semen is never discharged pure; it is always diluted with the secretion from the prostate and other glands, and also the mucus of the urethra. A chymical analysis is thus given of 100 parts:

Water	90
Mucilage	6
Phosphate of Lime	3
Soda	1
	——
	100

The semen may certainly be vitiated and diseased: the odor and color assume all the gradations of other secretions when in a morbid condition.

Semen not discharged is supposed to be absorbed, thereby adding to the strength and nutriment of the economy; but as it is furnished for a specific purpose, and its secretion depends much upon the play of our animal passions, and as they are rarely permanently idle, there is not only the inducement that the fluid be furnished, but also emitted, and hence we have nocturnal emissions. These, to a degree, are salutary; but they may happen so frequently that the function becomes disordered and perverted, and in some individuals the semen (unconsciously to them) escapes during sleep, or on the slightest local excitement of riding, walking, or on the action of the bladder or rectum.

The prostate gland, as has been stated, contributes much to the dilution of the semen; it may empty itself independently of it. The gland is composed of numerous cells, from which proceed some twenty or thirty pipes or passages that open in the urethra by the sides of the verumontanum, as shown in the drawing.

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