THE PITUITARY BODY 



they may possess substitutional properties. For example, it 

 appears that the internal secretion of the corpus luteum, 

 progesterone, may be a much less potent but fairly satisfac- 

 tory substitute for adrenal cortical hormone after adrenal- 

 ectomy. Therefore, experiments dealing with the interplay 

 of so many variables, to which are added the necessary inac- 

 curacies of biological work, must be interpreted with reserve. 

 Complete adrenalectomy may affect adversely sexual and, 

 presumably, pituitary gonadotropic function. Until there is 

 better evidence to the contrary, these actions are best inter- 

 preted as resulting from the general, nonspecific, harmful 

 effects of a deficiency of the adrenal cortical hormone. Mar- 

 tin and Fazekas (1937) concluded that salt therapy of bilater- 

 ally adrenalectomized adult female rats facilitated the normal 

 cyclic sexual phenomena (normal oestrous cycles in 55 per 

 cent of animals receiving salt solution in comparison with 

 normal cycles in 21 per cent of control animals observed for a 

 much shorter period). What observations they made with 

 pituitary implants are not of much value as an aid in inter- 

 pretation. According to Fitzhugh (1937), adrenalectomy in 

 the rat is followed by a disappearance of oestrous cycles in the 

 female or atrophy and degenerative changes in the testes of 

 the male; he reported that both of these changes could be cor- 

 rected by the injection of adrenal cortical extract. Britton 

 and Kline (1936) concluded that in the presence of adrenal 

 insufficiency the female rat is usually sterile; if adrenal in- 

 sufficiency is produced in pregnant animals, abortion com- 

 monly occurs and there is no lactation. All these harmful 

 changes can be prevented by adrenal cortical extract. Fer- 

 tility also is reduced in the adrenalectomized male rat sur- 

 viving because of accessory tissue. Friedgood (1937) studied 

 the effect of adrenalectomy on ovulation in the cat following 

 coitus. He found that removal of the second adrenal 15-55 

 minutes after mating was not followed by ovulation (9 cats), 

 whereas if the operation was delayed until 6 hours after mat- 

 ing, normal ovulation occurred (3 cats). Bilateral adrenal- 



[96] 



