A practical treatise on the diseases of the testis and of the spermatic cord and scrotum / by T.B. Curling ; edited by P.B. Goddard.

  • Curling, Thomas Blizard, 1811-1888.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases of the testis and of the spermatic cord and scrotum / by T.B. Curling ; edited by P.B. Goddard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    makes no appearance before puberty, uneasiness is often experienced at that period, owing to the enlargement of the gland being restrained by the rings and parts composing the inguinal canal. At the same time, also, it is often protruded outside the external ring by the movements of the abdomen in respiration. The causes of a failure in thedescent of the testis have not been much investigated; and as considera- ble doubt has long prevailed respecting the mode and agency by which this change is effected, no satisfactory explanation could be expected of the circumstances interrupting or preventing it. When we reflect on the nature of that process, as my researches have led me to describe it, it is clear that there must not only be a perfect adaptation of parts, a due relation between the body drawn down, and the structures which it traverses, but also corresponding power in the agent by which it is accomplished. There are few muscles in the human body whose developement in different indi- viduals varies in a greater degree than that of the cremaster. And if such be the case after birth, it is not unreasonable to presume that similar dif- ferences exist in the foetus before the descent of the gland, and that a failure in that process may be the result of deficient power in the musculus testis to accomplish the passage. May we not also conclude that this muscle is sometimes paralyzed, and that the faulty descent is owing to a want of a due supply of the nervous energy which we know is often denied toother muscles during foetal e -