METABOLISM 207 



secondary effects of trauma to the nerve plexuses near the 

 adrenal, for adrenal insufficiency tends to cause hypo- rather 

 than hyper-plasia of the thyroid. The rats in Tsuji's 641 experi- 

 ments, in which he found thyroid hyperplasia after adrenalec- 

 tomy, died within a few days following operation. The short 

 period of survival of his animals indicates the degree of trau- 

 matization to which they must have been subjected and render 

 his conclusions regaring an adrenal-thyroid relationship of no 

 significance. 



Marine and Baumann were 434 impressed by the similarity 

 in the clinical course of acute adrenal insufficiency and the 

 unusual form of Graves' disease which runs a rapidly fatal 

 course with severe asthenia, prostration, and coma. They also 

 considered the increased appetite, sleekness of the fur, rapid 

 healing of the operative wound, and the diarrhea which fol- 

 lowed sublethal injury to the adrenals to be suggestive of 

 hyperthyroidism. These experiments led Marine 433 to suggest 

 that the adrenals were involved in the etiology of exophthalmic 

 goitre, a view which shall be discussed in Chapter XIV. 



A satisfactory explanation of the rise in metabolic activity 

 following sub-lethal injury to the adrenals has not been pre- 

 sented. This rise is also frequently seen for some hours follow- 

 ing a complete bilateral adrenalectomy and hence might be 

 attributed to a moderate degree of adrenal insufficiency as 

 suggested by Marine and Baumann. However, this explana- 

 tion is improbable if we consider the fact that slight or moderate 

 degrees of insufficiency induced by methods other than those 

 involving direct physical injury to the adrenals and its con- 

 tiguous structures do not cause a rise in the metabolic rate. 

 Such an insufficiency when produced, for example, by with- 

 drawing from an adrenalectomized animal the adequate supply 

 of the cortical hormone upon which it had previously been 

 maintained does not cause any temporary hyperpyrexia. It 

 would seem, therefore, most logical to attribute the rise in 

 metabolism observed after sub-lethal injuries of the adrenal 



