Abstract
A study was made of the effects of high voltage cathode rays on the spermiogenic epithelium of the male adult white rat. The animals were about 5 months old, apparently healthy and virile. The shaved scrotal area was exposed in front of the anodal window of the Coolidge cathode ray tube to a current of one milliampere, at voltages of 200,000 and 250,000, about equally divided as to number of animals. All raying of more than one second duration was given in one second periods with about one-half second between each.
Tissues studied one to 50 days after raying.
Protocol of the experiments:
No. of rats Time of exposure Voltage
3 0.5 sec. 200,000
6 1.0 sec. 200,000
8 5.0 sec. 200,000
4 10.0 sec. 250,000
4 15.0 sec. 250,000
3 20.0 sec. 250,000
3 30.0 sec. 250,000
6 normal controls
The changes in the scrotal skin were similar to those in the abdominal skin as described previously by Jacobsen and Waddell, 1 and consisted chiefly of hyaline fusion of the collagen of the corium, acute necrosis of epidermal and hair follicle epithelium, with vascular changes as a much later occurrence.
Definite lesions were produced in the seminiferous tubules in a zone about 0.6 mm. in depth in the animals exposed for from 20 to 30 seconds, with proportionately shallower penetration in the animals exposed for shorter times. Pyknosis, fragmentation and kary-olysis of nuclei, and depression of mitosis were seen in spermatogonia, spermatocytes, and spermatids, the Sertoli cells being least affected. The interstitial cells showed insignificant changes. The tela subcutanea below the upper 0.2 mm. of the skin and the tunica vaginalis testis showed no evidence of injury, indicating very clearly the much greater sensitivity of germinal epithelium to this form of radiation.
Alterations in the Golgi apparatus of the germinal cells were also observed, fragmentation, perinuclear arrangements and fusion with acrosomic material, changes corresponding with findings in the roentgen-rayed testis of cavia cobaya as reported by Gatenby and Wigoder. 2
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