EFFECTS OF INANITION UPON ORGANS OF RAT 97 



loss in the absolute weight of the thyroid gland. In terms of 

 absolute weight, the thyroid gland after acute inanition aver- 

 ages 0.0380 gram, which is almost identical with the theoretical 

 weight corresponding to the average initial body weight of 244 

 grams (Hatai '13). 



The results in chronic inanition are somewhat different. Here 

 the thyroid gland forms an average of about 0.020 per cent of 

 the body weight, the normal for the corresponding initial body 

 weights being about 0.016 per cent. In this case the thyroid 

 gland has apparently lost weight during chronic inanition, though 

 relatively less than the body as a whole. According to Hatai 

 ('13) the weight of the thyroid gland corresponding to the aver- 

 age initial body weight of 214 grams would be about 0.034 

 gram. The final absolute weight averages 0.0266 gram, indi- 

 cating a loss of about 21.8 per cent in chronic inanition. 



On account of the variability of the thyroid gland, however, 

 and the difficulty in dissecting it out accurately, no final con- 

 clusions can be drawn from the limited number of observations 

 at hand. As in the case of the brain, spinal cord and eyeballs, 

 however, there appears to be a greater tendency to loss in weight 

 of the thyroid gland during chronic inanition. 



Excepting the observations by Falck ('54), indicating no 

 change in the relative (percentage) weight of the thyroid gland 

 during inanition in the dog, no data on this subject have been 

 found in the literature. Traina ('04) cites data, however, upon 

 the histological changes. 



THYMUS 



It is already known that the thymus in the albino rat nor- 

 mally undergoes a diminution in weight (due to age involution) 

 after the age of 10 weeks (Jackson '13) or more precisely 85 days 

 (Hatai '14). At the age of one year, it forms normally about 

 0.020 per cent of the body (Jackson). The thymus in the pres- 

 ent acute inanition series forms an average of about 0.020 per 

 cent of the body weight, while in the chronic inanition series 

 the average is 0.021 per cent (table 3). The age of the rats 

 used in the inanition experiments is unknown, but from the 



