STUDIES ON SECRETORY FUNCTION OF HUMAN ACCESSORY ORGANS OF REPRODUCTION

Abstract

The study on the human accessory organs of reproduction is one of the untouched areas of urology. There is much that is unknown concerning the relation of male hormons to the functions of these organs. This each of knowledge is largely due to the complexity of hormons as well as the lack of exact and simple hormon indicator tests.
However, in recent years some of the chemical nature of the secretions of these organs have been discovered, namely their high concentrations of citric acid, fructose, and acid phosphatase.
Mann reported that the analysis of citric acid and fructose in the male accessory glands could be used as a chemical hormon indicator test as a result of his excellent experiments which showed close relationships between the formation of citric acid, fructose and the level of testosteron. Acid phosphatase originate in the prostate and ranks as a chemica secondary characteristic, and is proportional to the level of androgen.
In my experiments I have determined the secretory function of the seminal vesicles and prostate from the analytical data of the seminal plasma by means of a combination of acid phosphatase tests, fructose tests and citric acid tests.
I adopted Huggins and Talalay's method for the determination of acid phosphatase Roe's method for fructose, ano Penman's method for citric acid.
Animal experiments; Rats of 60-70gm weight were used. Male rats were divided into two groups, castrated and non-castrated, and each of the two groups were divided into two more groups, the one Enarmon pellet (testosteron 25mg) was implanted and the other, non-implanted.
Using such a method I was able to demonstrate the effcts of Enarmon pellet implantation on the changes of body weight and accessory glands, histological variations and secretory functions in male rats.
The resuls obtained were as follows.
1) The absorption of Enarmon pellet in castrated rats was 0.67 mg/day as compared to 0.40mg/day in non-castrated rats. Therefore, implanted pellets were more rapidly absorbed in rats without testicular function than in normal specimens.
2) Increase in body weight was more rapid in castrated rats with Enarmon pellet implantation.
3) The Enarmon pellet implantation produced notable histological changes and hyperplasia in the male rats' accessory glands of reproduction.
4) Fructose, citric acid and phosphatase of the accessory glands diminished by castration and quickly recovered as a result of testosteron implantation. Especially noteworthy was the fact that there were no differences between histological findings of castrated pellet implanted rats and of non-castrated pellet implanted rats. But according to my hormon indicator tests there were apparent activated secretory functions in the former. As a result of above experiments I found it was possible to use the quantitative assay of fructose, citric acid and acid phosphatase as a sensitive and simple test for internal secretory functions of the testis. After the completion of the animal experiment these male hormon indicator tests were used in clinical research.
The results obtained in the clinical work were as follows.
1) The normal human semen contained 2.6mg/cc of fructose, 3.7mg/cc of citric acid and 752.8mg P. P./cc of acid phosphatase. And it was found that fructose was a only one sugar in the normal human semen according my circular paper chromatography.
2) Citric acid and phosphatase which were derived from the prostate were increased with the volume of semen but in the case of fructose, derived from the seminal vesicles, seminal fructos reached a constant level and no increase was seen over 3-4 cc of semen.
3) The male hormon indicator test in the semen of patients with disorders of the male sexual system. The low value of fructose, citric acid and acid phosphatase in azoospermia, the increase of fructose in oligospermia, the decrease of fructose in hemospermia and the remarkable disturbance of the testicular function i