ADTHOR S ABSTRACT OF THIS PAPER ISSUED 

 BT THE BIBLIOGRAPHIC SERVICE, AUGUST 11 



STUDIES ON THE REPUTED ENDOCRINE FUNCTION 

 OF THE THYMUS GLAND (ALBINO RAT) 



MATSUZIRO TAKENOUCHI 



The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology 



TWO CHARTS 



CONTENTS 



1. Introduction 311 



2. General plan and technique 315 



3. Immunization of the rabbit with the thymus gland of the albino rat 317 



4. Immunization of the rabbit with testes of the albino rat 327 



5. Immunization of the rabbit with the red corpuscles of the albino rat 330 



6. Immunization of the chicken with the red corpuscles of the albino rat. . . 335 



7. General discussion 336 



8. Resume and conclusions 339 



1. INTRODUCTION 



The various theories of the control of sexual development by 

 the thymus, mostly founded upon the correlation in man of the 

 time of thymus involution and sexual differentiation, do not 

 seem as yet to be firmly established. On the one hand, Klose 

 and Vogt ('10), Lucien and Parisot ('10), Paton ('11), and other 

 authors report that following thymus removal in birds and 

 mammals various effects are found, such as interference with 

 skeleton growth, including rachitic changes, together with adi- 

 posity or emaciation, injury to the thyroid and degeneration of 

 the testes; while on the other, Pappenheimer ('14), Park ('17), 

 and others state that if the experiments are carefully performed 

 and carefully controlled, the thymus can be removed without 

 producing any harmful effect whatever. 



In feeding experiments, Gudernatsch ('14) found that thymus- 

 fed larvae delayed their metamorphosis, although the animals 

 grew on this diet. Romeis ('15) and Abderhalden ('15) were 



311 



