1 66 INTERNAL SECRETION 



suprarenals had been removed, alive by means of watery supra- 

 renal extract obtained from animals of the same species. They 

 obtained better results with guinea-pigs, and succeeded in pro- 

 longing the lives of these animals for a few hours by means of 

 injections of suprarenal extract, given immediately after removal 

 of the second capsule. In a later publication, Abelous asserts 

 that he succeeded in keeping suprarenalless frogs alive for as 

 long as twelve days, by the injection of alcoholic extract of the 

 suprarenals of dogs. At almost the same moment, Brown- 

 Sequard communicated the fact that the injection of suprarenal 

 extract will produce a marked improvement in the condition of 

 moribund epinephrectomized guinea-pigs. 



Numerous accounts are forthcoming of the favourable effects 

 of organotherapy upon both the general condition and individual 

 symptoms, in animals reduced to extreme prostration after extir- 

 pation of their suprarenals. Many authors lay special stress upon 

 the fact that the intravenous injection of suprarenal extract raises 

 the low blood-pressure and improves the much impaired respir- 

 atory activity. Hultgren and Andersson found, in addition, ftiat 

 the subcutaneous injection of suprarenal extract prevented the 

 terminal fall in temperature, that it improved the general condition, 

 and to a certain extent relieved the extreme muscular weakness. 

 But in face of what is now known of the physiological activity of 

 suprarenal extract, these results cannot be regarded as in any way 

 establishing a specific substitution therapy. The results which 

 follow the exhibition of suprarenal extract in suprarenalless 

 animals are identical with those observed in normal animals and 

 in dying animals, whatever the cause of death. To establish the 

 value of a suprarenal substitution therapy, it is not sufficient to 

 point to the results observed after a single exhibition 

 (Einverleibung) of suprarenal extract. In my opinion such a 

 conclusion would be justified only if it were possible to show, as 

 in the case of substitution by the other organic extracts, that the 

 exhibition of suprarenal substance is able to prolong the lives of 

 suprarenalless animals. The material which is forthcoming does 

 not, however, provide any such proof. Langlois's epinephrectom- 

 ized rabbits and Hultgren and Andersson 's epinephrectomized 

 cats lived, after treatment with suprarenal extract, for at the most 

 twenty-four hours. Strehl and Weiss were able to keep the 

 animals which they treated with suprarenal extract alive for 

 only nine hours longer than the control animals. I have 

 treated a large number of animals, by feeding them with 

 suprarenal tabloids previous to epinephrectomy, for periods 

 varying from a few days to several weeks, the treatment being 

 continued after operation by means of subcutaneous injections of 

 the watery extract of suprarenal. But in spite of the flooding of 

 the organism in this manner with suprarenal substance, there 

 was little difference after operation in the condition of these 



