Mi IJISTOUHiy OK THE POISON-GLANDS OF Hl'FO AUUA. 



Nor is the formation of p-hydroxyphenylethylamin an isolated example of the pro- 

 duction by living cells of an amin base from an amino acid. Ackermann (1910) has shown 

 that the poisonous base /3-imidazolethylamin, 



CH 



/ ^ 

 HN N 



HC=C-CH.,-CH, 

 NH 2 , 



the exhibition of which results in all the symptoms of anaphylactic shock, is a derivative 

 of the non-toxic acid histidin, 



CH 



/^ 

 HN N 



H( I=C - CH, - CH - COOH 

 NH 2 , 



and that the change from acid to base is of the nature of a bacterial decarboxylization or 

 splitting off of carbon dioxide from the acid molecule. 



Very recently an important addition to our knowledge of animal poisons has been made 

 by the work of Henze (1913), who studied chemically the venom of a cephalopod found in 

 the Bay of Naples. This animal kills its prey (the crab) with a very powerful poison 

 secreted by its salivary glands, the pressor principle of which was supposed to be a toxal- 

 bumin. Henze has proved, however, that this poison is none other than the same p-hydroxy- 

 phenylethylamin which Barger and his co-workers found in putrid meat. Its production 

 from tyrosin by decarboxylization probably results, in these cephalopods, from the meta- 

 bolic activity of the gland-cells themselves. 



Now, since one of the aromatic amin bases, a virulent, poisonous pressor substance, 

 can be derived from a harmless amino-acid by so simple a process as decarboxylization, 

 resulting from glandular activity, it can not be considered an unreasonable supposition 

 that another aromatic amin base, adrenalin, chemically and physiologically closely related, 

 may be synthesized in the same way as Guggenheim (1913) first suggested from a related 

 mother substance. And what would be more probable than that the mother substance of 

 adrenalin in these glands be a compound of the same sort as tyrosin, the mother substance 

 of p-hydroxyphenylethylamin (an amino acid) and that the change of that acid to the base 

 adrenalin be accomplished also by a splitting off of CO 2 , as in the synthesis of the related 

 amin base, perhaps through the activity of the naked nuclei of the glandular epithelium? 



The common chromaffin organs of this particular toad present nothing remarkable for 

 notice. The adrenal is of the type ordinarily found in the Anura, a long, narrow, irregular 

 band of a bright golden yellow color on the ventral surface of the kidney. Sections show 

 that the gland is an extremely vascular structure, built up of strands of cells, irregularly 

 polygonal in shape, whose pale cytoplasm contains, near its center, a large round nucleus 

 which stains deeply with hematoxylin. These cells are loaded (fig. 10) with masses of 

 sudanophil lipoid material, which the polariscope shows to be singly refractive. These 

 cells, of course, represent the cortex of the mammalian adrenal. Irregularly interwoven 

 aiming the cortical strands are masses or columns of cells loaded with chromaphil granules, 

 so thickly as to obscure the cell nuclei. This medullary substance is sometimes round, in 

 masses embedded in the cortical strands, but otherwise has no definite relation to the cortex. 



