STERILITY (Lat. stcrilitas, barrenness, from stcrilis, barren; connected with Gk. arepe6s, stereos, solid, stiff, barren, o-repapos, steriphos, hard, barren). Barrenness, infecundity. In a woman, sterility consists of an incapacity for conception; in a man, of the inability to procre ate the species. T. G. Thomas, of New York, has analyzed exhaustively the cause of sterility in a woman as follows: (1) Causes preventing the entrance of semen into the uterus, including ab sence of the uterus or vagina, obturator hymen, vaginismus, atresia vaginae, occlusion of cervical canal, conical shape of cervix, cervical endome tritis, polypi or fibroids, displacements, very small os intern= or externum. (2) Causes pre venting the production of a healthy ovule, in cluding chronic ovaritis, cystic disease of both ovaries, cellulitis or peritonitis, absence of ovaries. (3) Causes preventing passage of ovule into uterus, including stricture or obliteration of Fallopian tubes, absence of Fallopian tubes, de tachments and displacements of Fallopian tubes.
(4) Causes destroying the vitality of semen or preventing fixation of impregnated ovum, in cluding corporeal or cervical endometritis, mem branous dysmenorrhew, menorrhagia or metror rhagia, abnormal growths, areolar hyperplasia.
Sterility in man is organic when there is anatomical derangement of the apparatus; atonic when erections are wanting or feeble; anesthetic when there is a diminution of sensitiveness in the nerves supplying the male organ; or psychic when mental conditions (as of fright. repulsion, etc.) inhibit the genital centre in the spinal cord. The determination of which partner in mar riage is sterile is of great importance. In many countries obloquy and derision attach to the wife who fails to hear children, and her legal status is impaired. The woman is much less often to blame than has been supposed.