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The history of ideas about testicular descent

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Abstract

Ideas about the causes of testicular descent have changed dramatically over the last 200 years. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the focus was on anatomical studies and hypotheses of testicular movement. Many notions were based on sound anatomical observations, but were discarded almost without a second thought with the advent of endocrinology in the early twentieth century. The proposed role for androgens swept away nearly all the previous anatomical concepts. Now late in the twentieth century we are rediscovering the old anatomical studies and are attempting to integrate these into a combined anatomical — hormonal model of testicular descent.

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  1. Surgical Research Laboratory, Royal Children's Hospital Research Foundation, Flemington Road, 3052, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

    Martyn P. L. Williams & John M. Hutson

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  1. Martyn P. L. Williams
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  2. John M. Hutson
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Williams, M.P.L., Hutson, J.M. The history of ideas about testicular descent. Pediatr Surg Int 6, 180–184 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00176064

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