1923- X'"». 7- A CASE OF "virilisme SL-RRÉNAL". 5 



As the ovary was small and infiltrated with tiny metastases, and as 

 I had all the time taken for granted that the tumour had most probably 

 originated in a more deeply situated organ, I chanced to think of the 

 parovarium as a possible point of origin, the more so as among the works 

 concerning the cause of the appearance of atypical birds, one investigator, 

 Orjax Olsen, sees a connection between the parovarium and an arrhenoid 

 aspect*. As I wished to investigate these conditions more carefuUv with- 

 out separating the ovary from the parovarium, I cut out all the organs 

 after removing the uppermost part of the left kidney, imbedded the whole 

 in paraffin, and cut a very long series from it. 



This series showed me in the first place that the ovarv, though cer- 

 tainly hypoplastic, yet contained not a lew eggs, which were well devel- 

 oped with distinct nuclei, and surrounded by small groups of lutein-cells 

 (see fig. 5). 



It is the famous American biologist, Morgan, who, by his experiments 

 in the castration of fowls, has shown that it is most probablv these cells 

 that secrete the hormone which conditions the hen-like appearance in those 

 birds which exhibit no sexual diftbrmity. 



From the information thus obtained through Professor Morgan, I 

 could obvioush' assume that the peculiar masculine appearance of this hen 

 might arise from there being too few eggs in the hypoplastic ovary, and 

 that in consequence the production of those hormones upon which the 

 characteristic appearance of the hen depends was too small. I therefore 

 procured an ovary from a normal hen. but there were no more lutein- 

 cells round its eggs than there were round those of the atypical bird 

 (fig. 61. Knowing, moreover, from Good a les experiments, that only a very 

 small portion of the organ is necessary to prevent the appearance of the 

 cock-like character, and as the number of eggs in the ovary was not so 

 ver}' small, I could onh- suppose that the cause must be sought elsewhere. 



A continued study of my long series soon showed me that the left 

 suprarenal gland was in a proliferative condition (fig. 7). The appearance 

 of these proliferating cells — which immediateh- fill with globules of fat 

 and are pressed out by them into the strange forms which so greatly 

 resemble the reticular connective tissue in ordinary sections from which 

 the fat has been withdrawn — at once threw light upon the nature of 

 the tumour. There can be no doubt about the connection between the 

 section through the large tumour and that through the left suprarenal 

 gland. The tumour-proliferation issuing from the periphery of the supra- 

 renal gland infiltrated the adjacent organs just as that from a malignant 

 tumour usually does. This was shown with especial clearness by the 

 tumour-infiltrated ganglia round the ovarv. 



' Arrhenoidie is a term introduced into ornitholoery in 1889 by the Russian zoologist, 

 Brandt, to express a cock-like appearance in the hen. 



