FOREWORD 



THE writing of a monograph of significant value to 

 clinicians and to investigators on the physiology, 

 pharmacology, and functional pathology of the pi- 

 tuitary gland is, today, a herculean undertaking, for the as- 

 siduous applications of surgical, biochemical, and physiologi- 

 cal investigative methods to this gland, especially during the 

 last fifteen years, have revealed an organ of exceptional im- 

 portance and complexity. The pituitary-gland literature is 

 very voluminous and, at the periphery, conflicting. The au- 

 thor, himself an active and successful worker on some phases 

 of the pituitary-gland problem, has filtered some five thou- 

 sand of these research reports through his critical mind. The 

 result, I believe, is clearly on the credit side, in scope, brevity, 

 fairness, and sound conclusions. 



Through its chemical messengers, or hormones, the pitui- 

 tary gland appears to touch nearly all the physiological proc- 

 esses of the vertebrate organism, some more profoundly than 

 others. The growth processes, the ovarian and testes activi- 

 ties, seem most completely under pituitary-hormone control. 

 The rest of the endocrine system and the processes of metab- 

 olism are less profoundly affected, while the nervous system 

 is the least influenced, according to the present information. 

 But many of the pituitary-gland products, fractionated by 

 modern biochemical methods, and demonstrated to have 

 physiological or pharmacological actions, have not yet been 

 shown to be true pituitary-gland hormones — that is, to be 

 secreted into the body fluids by this gland in health or disease. 

 That various physical and chemical agents appHed to the 

 dead or dying hypophysis may develop specific chemical en- 

 [vii] 



