308 WHALES 



from the posterior pituitary lobe of Cetaceans, and that other hormones 

 regulating gro^v■th, thyroid secretion, lactation and the function of the 

 sexual organs can be isolated from the anterior lobe. Biologists have found 

 that the anterior lobe, and thus the pituitary gland, is twice its normal 

 mass in pregnant females, and Nishiwaki and Oye (1951) showed that the 

 anterior lobe of Blue Whales and Fin Whales was heavier the smaller 

 a given male or the larger a given female. With the onset of puberty, the 

 gland swells perceptibly in both sexes. 



Ho^vever, Jacobsen failed to find the anterior lobe hormone (A.C.T.H. 

 - adrenocorticolrophic hormone) which stimulates the adrenal cortex. 

 This is not surprising when we consider that the preparation and the 

 effects of this hormone were first tackled successfully in other mammals 

 and man since the Second World War, and that the work was so original 

 that Hench, Kendall and Reichstein were awarded the Nobel Prize for 

 their part in it (1950). A.C.T.H. has important applications in the treat- 

 ment of arthritis, rheumatism and serious burns, and the results so far 

 achieved with it have been most striking. In the 1949- 1950 season, 

 the pituitary of whales was collected for the first time aboard the 

 Thorshovdi, with the object of preparing A.C.T.H. from it, and 

 Holterman, an employee of Nyegaard & Co., Oslo, did in fact succeed 

 in isolating it. In the ensuing seasons a concerted effort by the entire 

 Norwegian whaling fleet yielded approximately 9,000 pituitary glands 

 with a total weight of about 400 lb. Twenty-five thousand ampules 

 of A.C.T.H. were given free of charge to a number of hospitals, and the 

 work continues. 



It is only natural that Norwegian scientists should have played a 

 leading part in the study of the endocrine glands of Cetaceans, since 

 Norway not only owns the biggest whaling fleet but is, as we have seen, 

 very poor in cattle, the chief source of hormones in other countries. For 

 similar reasons, Norway and Japan have also made a thorough study of the 

 Cetacean pancreas, an organ that not only secretes enzymes into the 

 intestine (see Chapter 10), but that contains small islands of special tissue 

 (the islands of Langerhans) which secrete the hormone insulin into the 

 bloodstream. Insulin regulates the sugar metabolism in the liver and, 

 when the islands do not function properly, too much sugar is found in the 

 blood, and diabetes sets in. By taking regular injections of insulin, diabetics 

 can nowadays live an otherwise normal life. This type of hormone 

 therapy was started in 1922, when Banting and Best managed to isolate 

 chemically pure insulin from the pancreas of cattle, and ever since the 

 demand for insulin has increased by leaps and bounds. Diabetes is, to 

 some extent, a hereditary condition, and the more diabetics are saved and 

 allowed to propagate, the more widespread the condition becomes. Thus 



