Abstract
Dr. Shigeru Hatakeyama (1925-2007 Honorary Professor of Tokyo Medical and Dental University) was a famous and skillful pathologist who had observed and investigated the human testes in detail. He demonstrated in his article (Acta Pathologica Japonica. vol. 73. p3-29, 1984) that (1) autoimmune infiltration was more frequently developed in testes than any other organs, and (2) approximately 70% cases of the idiopathic male infertility may be of autoimmune origin, as a result of autopsy finding of 397 cases unrelated to male infertility. Here, we would like to discuss about “immunological fragility of the testis” using both Dr. Hatakeyama's autopsy report and our observations on mice.