THE PITUITARY BODY 



a rise in the urinary concentration of the hormones.*'^ It 

 must be emphasized that these reports may not be in accord 

 with those of other investigators. The reports and discus- 

 sions of Osterreicher (1935) and Fkihmann (1937) should be 

 read to correct any behef that various authors are in reason- 

 able agreement as to the concentration of gonadotropic hor- 

 mones in the blood or the excretion of the hormones in the 

 urine of both children and adults. This is also true of the 

 cyclic variations which may be found in the blood and urine 

 of women. 



The daily urinary excretion of gonadotropic hormone by 

 normal men is probably greater than 6 rabbit-units (Fried- 

 man and Weinstein, 1937). 



Anselmino and Hoffmann (1936) concluded that early in 

 pregnancy small amounts of pituitary gonadotropic hormone 

 are excreted in the urine. In the urine of patients with hyper- 

 emesis gravidarum an increased amount of pituitary gonado- 

 tropic hormone was believed to be excreted, whereas none 

 of the hormone could be found in the urine of patients with 

 eclampsia. These conclusions must be regarded only as sug- 

 gestions, because detection of the pituitary hormones was 

 based on the production of ovarian hypertrophy greater than 

 55-60 mg. in rats 30-35 days old (28-35 gm.). It was assumed 

 that the prolan present produced a limited hypertrophy. A 

 total number of only 54 rats was used and the possible syner- 

 gistic effect of the secretion of the rats' pituitaries was dis- 

 regarded. According to Tenney and Parker (1937), the urine 

 of parturient women contains a pituitary-stimulating sub- 

 stance causing indirect gonadotropic effects. They believed 

 that this substance could be distinguished from prolan which 



''^ The authors as well as Frank, Salmon, and Friedman (1935) performed their 

 assays in normal rats. Their results should be confirmed (e.g., the presence of 

 luteinizing hormone) in hypophysectomized rats (see also Guyenot and others, 

 1936). Evan^and Simpson (1935) produced superovulation and even corpus luteum 

 formation with extract of "menopause urine." To what extent these phenomena 

 would have been observed in hypophysectomized rats is not known. Also, they 

 agreed with others in their description of the synergistic effects of such extracts with 

 prolan. 



[ 104] 



