THE ACTION OF TESTIS HORMONE IN CORRECTING CHANGES INDUCED IN THE RAT PROSTATE AND SEMINAL VESICLES BY VITAMINE B DEFICIENCY OR PARTIAL INANITION

Abstract

The testes of 18 [male] rats kept upon a diet deficient in the antineuritic fraction of vitamin B, or on insufficient diets containing an excess of B, were found to consist of normal seminiferous tubules in active spermatogenesis but the reproductive accessories (prostate gland and seminal vesicles) were castrate in type. In animals with castrate accessories daily injections of either testes hormone (10 rats) or anterior hypophysis hormone from pregnancy urine (4 rats) caused the castrate condition to be replaced by the normal state within 10 days. The authors interpret these findings in terms of a more general theory Partial starvation induced by diets deficient in vitamin B, or insufficient diets rich in B, leads to a poor nutritive state which affects the hypophysis. Inhibition of hypo-physial secretion leads to a lowered amount of the sex stimulating hormone available in the organism. In the absence of this stimulating substance the testes fail to continue their endocrine function and castrate accessories are present. Injections of testis hormone stimulate the accessories directly, whereas injections of hypophysis hormone stimulate the intact testes to secrete their hormone which then acts upon the accessories. There is evidence to show that under the conditions of the experiment the endocrine function of the testis is disturbed, whereas spermatogenetic function continues.