This study is based on observations made on boys at birth, during infancy, and throughout early childhood. Its purpose was to find out how often the testes were in the scrotum at birth and what happened in later years to those that were not.An analysis of the position of the testes was made in over 3,500 infant boys at birth. Those in whom one or both testes were not in the scrotum at the age of 1 month were followed up. To this number a further 40 cases of failure of descent in early infancy have been added in order to obtain, as nearly as possible, a true incidence of the various types of failure.

No abstract

Descent of the testicle from the abdomen into the scrotum is known to occur at about the eighth month of foetal life. If the transition has not taken place at birth it may do so shortly after. It is said that movement can take place at any time up to puberty but very rarely afterwards.Mothers, midwives and doctors are all aware that the scrotum of the newborn baby is usually well formed and contains both testicles. The proportion of infants in whom descent has failed or is retarded has apparently only once before been seriously studied. This paper records the results of examining over 1,700 infants in order to discover how often the testicle was undescended at birth. If

SUMMARY A series of some 1,700 newborn infants has been examined in order to discover the frequency of undescended testicle, and to find out what happened to the testicle in those infants who had the deformity. The incidence of undescended testicle in full‐term infants at birth was 4 per cent. Of fifty‐five infants followed up, descent occurred within the first three months in the majority. After three months, descent was slow and appeared to be incomplete. At the end of one year seven infants remained in whom no descent had taken place. The close similarity between the incidence of the condition in infants 1 year old and in adults has been discussed. Evidence from these observations on infants suggests that complete descent of the testicle does not occur after 3 months of age in the full‐term infant.

No abstract