PHYSIOLOGY 



I will now take an example from another of 

 these so-called ' ductless glands.' There is, sitting 

 on the top of each of your kidneys like a cocked 

 hat, a little red thing which is called the supra- 

 renal body the adrenal body or gland, some 

 people call it. Many years ago it was noticed that, 

 when this little gland becomes diseased upon both 

 sides simultaneously, so that finally there is no 

 healthy gland left, the patient becomes weaker and 

 weaker, and gradually dies. The particular train 

 of symptoms was called Addison's disease. Dr 

 Addison, who discovered the disease in question, 

 was one of the old physicians at Guy's Hospital 

 some two generations ago. What he then found 

 has since been confirmed, not only by observations 

 on the disease, but also by experimentation upon 

 animals, viz., that these two insignificant-looking 

 little bodies are indispensable for life, and that their 

 removal or disease brings about death within a 

 comparatively short time. We do not know all the 

 different chemical materials which they pour into 

 the blood, but one of them, at any rate, has been 

 separated and obtained in a pure crystalline form 

 by taking many hundredweight of suprarenal 

 glands (also in the Chicago houses) and analysing 

 them. A minute quantity, again, of this material, 

 which is called adrenaline, has thus been prepared. 

 It is extraordinarily^ powerful ; a very little goes 

 a tremendously long way, but that, little though it 



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