Abstract
In the adult male rat, castration invariably results in atrophy of the prostate within 4 or 5 days. In the immature male rat, however, castration is not accompanied by atrophy of the prostate. Price 1 found that the rat prostate will develop in an essentially normal manner in the absence of the gonads and that the functional integrity of the ventral prostate is maintained for a certain period after early removal of the gonads. Howard 2 confirmed Price's observations on the rat and suggested that a transitory andromimetic function of the adrenal may be responsible for the maintenance of the immature prostate in the absence of the testes. Davidson and Moon 3 found that administration of adrenocorticotropic substance to the immature castrated male rat caused hypertrophy of the adrenal cortex and also produced a gross and histological stimulation of the prostate.
The present experiment was undertaken to determine directly whether or not the immature male adrenal possesses an andromimetic function.
Immature male albino rats from our stock colony were used in the experiment. Litters were divided into 3 groups: (1) castrate at 16 days, (2) castrate at 16 days and adrenalectomized at 21 days, and (3) adrenalectomized at 21 days. All the animals were killed at 26 days of age. The ventral prostates were removed, fixed in Bouin's fluid, sectioned and stained with hematoxylin and eosin. An additional group of animals (not litter mates) were castrated at various ages (4 to 18 days) and killed at 26 days of age. Their ventral prostates were also removed and treated for microscopic examination.
All operations were done under ether anesthesia, particular care being taken to keep the anesthesia light for adrenalectomy.
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