474 Castration and Thyroidectomy Basophils 



Zeckwer and her co-workers' state: "Morphologically there are distinct dif- 

 ferences between the changes in the pituitary resulting from thyroidectomy 

 and those resulting from castration. It is only at long intervals after thyroid- 

 ectomy that the cells are somewhat similar to castration cells. The intracellular 

 globules of 'castration cells' are large, smooth, well defined, and appear to be 

 composed of dense secretion, hyaline in appearance when fixed and stained, 

 and push to one side the basophilic granules in the cell, but in thyroidectomy 

 cells the secretory accumulation has a less regular contour. We have not seen 

 in early stages of 'castration cells' the characteristics observed in early stages of 

 'thryoidectomy cells.' In both cases, thyroidectomy and castration, there is 

 preliminary to the formation of vacuoles, a distinct increase in large solid 

 basophilic cells." Guyer and Claus^ agree there are significant morphological 

 differences between castration and thyroidectomy basophils and point out a 

 number of criteria which they believe serve to differentiate the two cell types. 



Materials and Methods 



The present studies on the pituitaries of castrated and thyroidectomized rats 

 have extended over a period of years— since 1930. The material consists of 

 pituitaries of adult male rats which were castrated and sacrificed at periods 

 varying from 10 days to 18 months after operation; also the glands of similar 

 animals thyroidectomized and autopsied 10 to 162 days after thyroidectomy. 

 Completeness of thyroidectomy was checked at autopsy by examination of the 

 region under the binocular microscope. 



The following technical methods were employed for this study of the pitui- 

 tary: Mallory-Azan technique of staining was the routine method for general 

 histological study; this method was supplemented by cytological techniques 

 similar to those used by Severinghaus; the Nassonov-Kolatchev method of 

 osmic-acid impregnation was used to demonstrate the Golgi apparatus; some 

 of such osmicated preparations were counterstained with the Mallory-Azan 

 technique; the Altmann-Masson method of staining, following Champy fixa- 

 tion, has also proved very helpful in demonstrating the mitochondria. Details 

 of the histological and cytological methods as adapted here have been pre- 

 viously published— Koneff;" and Reese, Koneff and Akimoto.^ 



Observations 



Insufficient attention has been given to the importance of the differences in 

 the manner in which vacuoles form in thyroidectomy and castration cells. It 

 is true, fallacious conclusions may be drawn from constructing a series of 

 changes based upon a study of various stages in a process. However, if the 

 intracellular phenomena are so marked as to result in reduction of the entire 

 cytoplasm to a vacuolated mass, it does seem that a trained observer should 

 not encounter any difficulty in identifying the various stages in the process. 

 This is particularly cogent since the examination of preparations made at 



