Abstract
The effects of vitamin E deficiency in the fowl were observed in Rhode Island Red males over a period of approximately 2 years.
Mating experiments showed that after 1 year on the Eβfree diet all of the males were capable of fertilizing ova, but that after 2 years some of the males were sterile.
Sperm smears showed that shortly after the beginning of the experiment, many of the mature spermatozoa exhibited an abnormal condition of the nuclear material of the head, while others remained normal.
In histological sections of the testes made at the end of the 2 years, conditions varied from almost normal to complete atrophy, the latter being a condition that has already been described in the male mammal. Moreover, the conditions in any given section were not uniform for even in an advanced stage of E deficiency there were small islands of apparently normal tissue. However, in this case, as in the mammal, the process of degeneration affects the mature sperm cells first and gradually works to the outside of the seminiferous tubule thus attacking the youngest maturation stages last.
The results of the experiment point definitely to destruction of the testis under prolonged Eβdeficient conditions but it is also quite apparent that the testis of the fowl is extremely resistant to vitamin E deficiency.