Further observations on the testicular pathology in Trypanosoma vivax infection of sheep and goats

Abstract

Trypanosoma vivax infection in 13 rams and 14 goats was associated with mild to severe testicular degeneration. Testicular atrophy (as measured by testicular weight as percentage of total body weight) produced by the disease was significantly correlated with seminiferous tubular diameter (P The testicular degeneration was presumed to result in most cases from the thermal effects of the pyrexia (103° to 107·2°F, 39·5° to 40·8°C) that accompanied the numerous parasitaemic peaks, a hypothesis supported by the focal alopecia of the scrotal skin and the absence of trypanosomes and hence inflammatory reaction in the intertubular connective tissue. A second mechanism of degeneration was the appearance in two sheep of fibrin thrombi in testicular vessels accompanied by testicular degeneration and generalised mononuclear cell reaction; in one of the animals in which these thrombi virtually blocked the channels of these vessels there was marked pooling of blood with distension of the vessels and resultant coagulative necrosis (infarction) of the entire seminiferous epithelium in many parts of the testes.