Internal secretion and the ductless glands / by Swale Vincent.

  • Vincent, Swale, 1868-1934.
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Internal secretion and the ductless glands / by Swale Vincent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    as the diphtheria toxin, give rise to hypertrophy of the cortex, and in some instances apparently to deficiency of the medulla. Ritchie and Bruce report in diphtheritic toxgemia in guinea- pigs exhaustion of all adrenin from the adrenal medulla. 3. It has often been suggested that in the cortical cells the material which is to furnish the active agent of the medullary secretion—the adrenin—passes through the initial stages of formation, and that the process of elaboration is completed in the medulla. This view has been tentatively proposed by Schafer and Herring, and more definitely formulated by Abelous, Soulie, and Toujan. These authors believe that the active principle can be obtained in small quantities from the cortex, where it is manufactured from tryptophane. It is then passed into the medulla and stored there. These views have not received support, and the experimental evidence in their favour is not convincing. Elliott and Tuckett have made an attempt to solve the problem of a possible functional relationship between cortex and medulla. Among mammals the guinea-pig is conspicuous by the huge development of its adrenal bodies, the growth being chiefly of cortex. They point out also that the lower the animal is in the scale of vertebrates, the larger is its stock of chromaphil tissue. Gestation accelerates the growth of the gland. As signs of secretory activity Elliott and Tuckett recognize four substances in the glands : (1) A fatty substance. (2) A doubly refracting substance. (3) Brown granules of the cortex. (4) The chromaphil substance of the medulla. The first two are nearly related ; the doubly refracting substance increases with rest, when the fat becomes less abundant. In phases of exhaustion ” the doubly refracting substance vanishes and the fat spreads over all the cortex. But neither are essential factors in a generalized type of cortical activity, for neither appears in the sheep. The brown granules occur characteristically and plentifully in the guinea-pig, and over a restricted area in the ornithorhyncus. They accumu¬ late with rest, and disappear very early in exhaustion ; the eytoplasni of the cells in which they have been stored then