daifu-orchid (imported) wrote: Sun May 04, 2014 8:07 pm I love EA! Where else do we get to consider an elephant's scrotum as it it were our own?

But elephants do not have scrotums. I just looked up elephants on Wikipedia. It says: "Elephants retain certain features from their aquatic ancestry such as their middle ear anatomy and the internal testes of the males." I should have looked it up on Wikipedia before asking here.

thewave22 (imported) wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2014 2:28 pm Can a man live his life without scrotum, but with his testicles exposed?

They could probably live for a time without a scrotum but it would be a constant battle to keep infections at bay. That's why they sew the testicles into pockets in the inner thighs when they can't salvage a scrotum. On a side note, mine were hanging out for 5 or 6 hours after an accident before the ER doc could clean and sew me up and every cold breeze was painful as hell but it could have just been due to the blood evaporating making it feel even colder.

A little grasp of anatomy may be informative.

A typical scrotum has an outer layer of epidermis, dead keratinized epithelial cells. The lumen of the gut is made of living cells, without any "skin."

Living human cells do not necessarily require a covering of dead cells to survive and thrive; a very few people do not develop or retain an epidermal (dead cell skin) outer layer, and they can survive rather well, though perhaps with bothersome discomfort.

However, if a person who has no epidermis were to take a bath in ordinary bath water, ion exchange through cells not protected by skin may rapidly result in loss of consciousness and, if continued, rapid death.

It is apparently possible for a sufficiently thirsty person to drink enough water to die from dilution of blood plasma electrolytes.

Exposed epithelium, mesothelium, or endothelium does not, of itself, necessarily pose fatal risk, else no one could safely eat anything.