THE GONADOTROPIC HORMONES 



tract is the production of immune bodies by specific or non- 

 specific protein included in impure extract. Max, Schmecke- 

 bier, and Loeb (1935), for example, believed that extraneous 

 protein was responsible for the refractory state of their guinea 

 pigs to extract injected after 4-6 weeks of treatment. Others 

 have attempted, without success, to correlate the presence or 

 development of typical immune bodies with the development 

 of antihormone. Usually the development of antibodies does 

 not parallel the development of antihormone (Collip, 1935; 

 Gustus, Meyer, and Dingle, 1935; Brandt and Goldhammer, 

 1936). Sulman (1937) who used prolan or pregnant-mare 

 serum as possible antigens concluded that these substances, 

 injected into rabbits, behaved neither as antigens (reaction 

 with antisera, including complement-fixation) nor as hap- 

 tenes.^^ 



A great deal of work is represented by investigations of the 

 species (and source) specificity of antihormones due to the in- 

 jection of gonadotropic extracts. ^^ If gonadotropic extracts 

 were highly species specific, this fact would constitute evi- 

 dence that they are artificially produced by some mechanism 

 analogous to antigen-antibody reactions. The results are 

 most varied and indicate that, in the hands of different in- 

 vestigators — and sometimes in the hands of the same investi- 

 gator — gonadotropic extracts may or may not be species 

 specific.'" Chen (1937) found that the ordinary proteins of 

 sheep or human serum, injected as serum repeatedly into 



''* B. F. Chow informs me that failure to secure a complement-fixation re- 

 action does not necessarily indicate that a substance is not antigenic and that the 

 antigenic effects of a highly potent antigen (e.g., prolan) may not be recognized un- 

 less relatively large doses are injected. 



^' Gonadotropic extracts, both for producing antihormone and for detecting the 

 presence of antihormone, have been obtained from the following sources: pituitary 

 tissue of man, the horse, ox, pig, or sheep; blood, placenta, or urine of human 

 pregnancy; serum or urine of equine pregnancy; urine of women past the menopause. 



'" Parkes and Rowlands (1937) concluded there is at least class specificity toward 

 antihormones. They were unable to prevent the thyrotropic or gonadotropic effects 

 of mammalian extracts in fowls by first injecting rabbit serum rich in antihormone 

 as judged by tests in mammals. 



[Ill] 



