The Infertility Problem

The clinic for the investigation and treatment of infertility problems was established by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Yale University School of Medicine in 1946. This was the result of a desire to further more scientific and efficient handling of infertility problems, to better coordinate activities in this field in a teaching program, and to stimulate research. Human reproduction has been a major concern of man since antiquity. At the present time the widespread interest of physicians, geneticists, biologists, physiologists, and others is witnessed by an increasingly voluminous literature on the subject and by the creation of new special society and study groups devoted to this subject. A long overdue change in the attitude of physicians toward the proper investigation of the male as a contributing factor in the problem has resulted in important additions to our knowledge of the problem. Authorities are largely in agreement that in one third to one half of barren unions the husband is responsible for the difficulty. Childless marriages are more common than ordinarily realized. Census figures show that 15 per cent of American couples have no children, and it has been stated that two thirds of these childless couples-one out of ten of all couples-are childless in spite of their desire to raise a family. This statement has not only the support of leading specialists in this field, but statistical support in the detailed studies of Whelpton and Kisert of 1,977 couples. In commenting upon this aspect of the problem Rock and Lotht state: "Even if the marriage rate falls below the prewar rate, there will still be more than a million and a half new couples every year, and for at least 150,000 of them this problem of infertility will become a personal one. Most of them will not find medical help because they will not know that