Thyroxine therapy in male infertility.

Abstract

VERY little systematic work has been done on the influence of the administration of thyroxine in physiological doses on male infertility in animals of different ages. This seems to have some practical value in the field of reproductive physiology, as male fertility decreases with advancing age and so does the rate of secretion of thyroxine. The question then arises whether any relationship exists between poor fertility and the decline in the rate of secretion of thyroxine in older animals and, if so, what is the effect of the administration of different doses of thyroxine on the male reproductive processes. In the present experiment, nine buck rabbits (inbred strains), which were classed as infertile in view of their poor breeding records, were used for studying the effects of the administration of known doses of thyroxine on libido, semen qualities and testis histology.