“Why Does The Doctor Hold Your Testicles And Ask You To Cough During A Physical?”
Because he is a goddamned pervert.
The correct place to check for an indirect inguinal hernia is to press on the pubic arch on both sides of the penis. If there is bulging on either side, the potential for such a revelation is very high.
The scrotum has very little to do with the detection of this condition.
Before I castrated horses I’d palpate the testicles to see if there were a) two of them and b) the scrotum wasn’t filled with taenia, or intestines. I once palpated a scrotum and thought I felt testicles but when I made the incision I realized they were fecal balls from the intestines. I then had to pull the intestines back up through the inguinal canal via a rectal and suture the scrotum back up. It was not a pleasant experience.