428 THE PINEAL ORGAN 



W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia, the author, refers to certain cases of hyper- 

 genitalism in preadolescent males combined with premature union of the 

 epiphyses of the long bones. The principal signs being : premature and 

 excessive development of the genital organs ; premature change of voice, 

 associated with rapid and excessive development of the body in general ; 

 the mental development, although somewhat precocious, not keeping 

 pace with the general precocity, and in addition to the above-mentioned 

 well-recognized group of symptoms, under the heading of skeletal changes, 

 Lisser states that " the boy is large for his age, as if he were becoming a 

 giant, but the excessive output of testicular secretions hastens epiphyseal 

 unification, and the premature union of the epiphyses transposes a mis- 

 leading and transitory gigantism into a final height which is not excessive 

 and which may indeed incline to a mild form of dwarfism. Roentgeno- 

 grams on such boys will reveal a bone age in advance of their chronological 

 age as an additional proof of precocity." 



It seems possible that this explanation of premature bodily growth 

 associated with excessive testicular secretion and premature union of the 

 epiphyses may account for some of the apparently contradictory results 

 of experimental work on the effects of feeding with pineal substance or 

 extracts, or injections of pineal extracts, namely: in some retardation 

 or arrest of growth, " dwarfism," while in others there has been excessive 

 growth. It must be borne in mind, however, that in a large proportion 

 of the clinical cases that have been recorded in which these symptoms 

 have been present there is no proof of their having been connected either 

 directly or indirectly with the pineal organ. 



The Influence of Pineal Grafts 



Calvet experimented on three rats belonging to the same litter. These 

 animals received every second day one-half epiphysis of an entire adult 

 horse, which was introduced into the subcutaneous tissue of the dorsal 

 region with aseptic precautions. The control animal received a portion 

 of muscle or cerebral substance of equal weight from the horse and 

 suffered the same traumatism as the experimental animals. The grafts 

 commenced on the 15th November, 1932, and ceased on the 10th 

 December. The weight of the control rat, which at the commencement 

 of the experiment was 38 grm., reached 62 grm. The others treated 

 with the epiphysis weighed 40 grm. at the commencement, decreased 

 3 grm. from their original weight. The normal rat increased 3 cm. in 

 length, while the size of the grafted animals remained stationary. 



Moreover, the migration of the testicles was arrested in the grafted 

 animal, and microscopic sections of the testicle showed a true atrophy, 



