Testicle Diseases-Absence, Pain, Tumors. Absence of the testicle at any age is nearly always a physical defect, present since childhood. It is usually an undescended testicle, which has remained unnoticed in the abdomen. Many men with just one external testicle have fathered several children, and have noticed no lack of virility through the absence of one testicle.

The atrophic, smaller size of one testicle, often noticed in adult men, is most often the result of serious virus infections in childhood-especially mumps. The smaller sized testicle remains the same throughout life, but has no significance so far as male hormone, virility, or sexual ability is concerned. The affection of both testicles in this manner, however, usually renders a man sterile.

Pain in the testicle is quite common, because it is a very sensitive organ, and trauma or other pressure causes immediate and severe pain. The sudden onset of unexplained severe pain of the testicle however, usually heralds an infection within the testicle or its tract, the epididymis, especially if accompanied by a mild blood discharge from the urethra. The infected testicle sometimes produces a bloody discharge, and its severe pain is markedly increased by any pressure, jarring or slight trauma. The pain forces the patient to drop his work and seek effective treatment. After diagnosing the difficulty, the physician may prescribe antibiotics, ice bag coverage, and occasionally incision and drainage in a surgical manner.

Tumor growth of the testicles, other than water cysts, are not very common after the age of fifty years. Most growth of the


Fig. 107. Scrota I hernia is simply a large ordinary hernia in the male. The protruding hernia mass, often the intestine, descends into the scrotum which may become the size of a football.

testicles that are cancerous in nature, are found during early youth and adolescence but there is no guarantee, that a growth of the testicle will not occur in the later years of life. Because of this, any growths or enlargements of the testicles, whether they be painful or not, should command an early visit to the physician for an examination.

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