Current Comment

FUNCTIONAL CAPACITY OF THE UNDESCENDED TESTIS  After reviewing the literature on the incidence, causes, microscopic appearance and treatment of the undescended testis, Rea 1 concludes that the undescended testis has an internal secretion. The evidence for its external secretion of viable spermatozoa, however, is scanty, and it is toward this question that his attention was given. For the experimental study of this problem only naturally cryptorchid animals, chiefly the dog and the pig, were used. Smears were made from cut sections from the testis, epididymis, vas deferens and seminal vesicles of abdominal testes in eleven full grown pigs. Microscopic sections also were made from these organs, and both smears and sections were searched for spermatozoa and the germinal epithelium was scrutinized. Although the gonads in each case showed the usual degenerative changes, smears made from cut sections of the testis revealed spermatozoa in six. As a result of other carefully