THE ANATOMY OF THE PITUITARY BODY 



tant to justify a detailed description. Often the dose of the 

 oestrogen has been large (e.g., 200 rat-units of oestradiol 

 benzoate daily for 10 days ), so that the effects may be such 

 a distortion of the physiological as to be chiefly of phar- 

 macological importance. The first and most important 

 change is a loss of granules from the basophils; in addition, 

 the percentage of basophils is reduced. Especially after large 

 doses, a similar loss of granules occurs in the oxyphils. Owing 

 to hypertrophy of the anterior pituitary, the proportion, but 

 probably not the number, of these cells diminishes. Several 

 of the authors concluded that "degranulated" basophils are 

 transformed into reserve cells. Such a transformation only in 

 a small part accounts for a simultaneous marked increase in 

 the percentage and total number of the reserve cells in which 

 numerous mitoses can often be observed. The hypertrophy 

 of the pars glandularis is due to the hyperplasia of reserve 

 cells. '5 



Usually the injection of a large dose of an oestrogen pro- 

 duces a considerable hypertrophy of the anterior pituitary 

 (2-3 times normal size). Enormous doses of an oestrogen may 

 correspondingly accentuate the change, so that the hyper- 

 plasia of the reserve cells is indistinguishable from a neoplasm 

 (reserve-cell adenoma). A change of this sort was first pro- 

 duced by Cramer and Horning (1936) in mice (see Fig. 8), 

 The authors were primarily interested in the production of 

 mammary carcinoma by the application of a solution of 

 oestrone (o.oi per cent dissolved in chloroform) to the skin, 

 through which the hormone was readily absorbed. In several 

 mice with large hemorrhagic adenomata composed almost en- 

 tirely of reserve cells, there were cachexia and degenerative 

 changes in the adrenal cortex, in addition to the expected 

 regressive alterations in the gonads. The authors suggested 

 that the mice with pituitary adenomata were suffering from 



'5 The response of the transplanted pituitary is similar; so it is not likely that the 

 effects depend to an important extent on the nervous system, as some authors have 

 asserted (Desclin and Gregoire, 1936}. 



[19] 



