Sexual Development in Male Rats Treated With Cortisone

¹ From the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, The Chicago Medical School, Chicago, Illinois

Immature male rats were treated with 1.0 mg cortisone acetate daily for 2 or 4 weeks starting at 23 days of age and were maintained on paired or ad libitum feeding regimes. Body, adrenal and thymus weights were reduced as compared to control animals. Actual testes weights were usually reduced less than body, liver or kidney weights. The ratios of testicular to body weight were significantly increased in the animals autopsied at the end of treatment. Histological examination of the testes revealed no significant alterations from normal. The ratios of seminal vesicle and ventral prostate weight to body weight were significantly decreased in all groups of ad libitum-fed animals and in pair-fed group autopsied at the end of 2 weeks of treatment. There were no significant changes in the other pair-fed groups. No modifications were observed in the histology of these organs. Pituitary glands removed from pair-fed animals at end of treatment with cortisone for 2 weeks appeared to have a higher GTH content than in the controls as indicated by the growth of the ovaries of immature rats injected with suspensions of these glands. Pituitary glands taken from other pair-fed groups and from all ad libitum-fed groups usually showed a lesser GTH content than in controls.