Cryptorchidism of testicular germ-cell tumors, and psychological problems when the boy is grown. Undescended testes are also more susceptible to testicular torsion (and subsequent infarction) and inguinal hernias. Without intervention, an undescended testicle will usually descend during the first year of life, but to reduce these risks, undescended testes can be brought into the scrotum in infancy by a surgical procedure called an orchiopexy. Although cryptorchidism nearly always refers to congenital absence or maldescent, a testis observed in the scrotum in early infancy can occasionally "reascend" (move back up) into the inguinal canal. A testis which can readily move or be
Western Attitudes Toward Death from the Middle Ages to the Present argues that the moment of death is difficult to distinguish for most survivors because they have already witnessed many "silent deaths" as the dying person loses different abilities – from breathing and eating on their own, to verbal communication and eventually consciousness. He states that in this current period there is no great and dramatic act of death, which was what family, friends, and neighbors used to gather together to witness. Ariès writes: "No one any longer has the strength or patience to wait over a period of weeks for a moment which has lost its meaning." Instead, doctors battle