THE NERVE SUPPLY TO THE PITUITARY BODY 



WALTER E. DANDY 



Hunterian Laboratory of Experimental Medicine 

 The Johns Hopkins University 



THREE FIGURES 



It is but natural that neglect of an organ itself should yield 

 a proportional lack of interest in its more detailed structure 

 and even more so, in its less important adjuncts — the blood and 

 nerve supply. Such has been true of the pituitary body. 



The recent tremendous stimulus produced by Paulesco's (1) 

 sudden transformation of the hypophysis from a structure of 

 vestigial curiosity to a vitally essential organ, has borne its fruit 

 in the rapid accumulation of co-working histological, (2) experi- 

 mental (3) (4) (5) (6) and clinical (7) (8) observations. Though 

 still very meager our information is now sufficient to have estab- 

 lished a hypophyseal clinical entity, amenable in many cases to 

 medical and surgical treatment. 



Forming as it does a link in the chain of internal secreting 

 glands, the hypophysis, essentially of hormone action, must be 

 regulated as other glands in this system, by an autonomic nerv- 

 ous mechanism. 



Recent studies from the Hunterian Laboratory (5) by Goetsch, 

 Gushing and Jacobson gave evidences of hypophyseal influence 

 over carbohydrate metabolism. It has been shown that sugar 

 tolerance is dependent upon the functional activity of the pos- 

 terior lobe of the pituitary body. It was later shown by Dandy 

 and Fitz Simmons (observations unpublished) that a piqure of 

 the hypophyseal region in rabbits produced a heavy glycosuria, 

 therefore giving results similar to a piqure of the so-called Ber- 

 nard's sugar center in the floor of the fourth ventricle. These 

 results have been amplified by Weed, Gushing and Jacobson (6). 



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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ANATOMY, VOL. 15, NO. 3 



