358 SECRETION. 



deprived of the capsule on the corresponding side. Both 

 animals died within twenty-four hours. Dr. Harley, among 

 other experiments, took out both capsules from a piebald rat. 

 The left was removed six weeks after the right. The ani- 

 mal entirely recovered and became fat and healthy looking. 1 



In such a question as this, negative experiments are of 

 little account ; and the instances in which animals have re- 

 covered and lived perfectly well after removal of both supra- 

 renal capsules show conclusively that they are not essential 

 to life. Death has probably been due, in most of the experi- 

 ments, to injury of the semilunar ganglia, as suggested by 

 Dr. Harley, and it is probably on account of the greater in- 

 jury, from the situation of the capsule, produced by opera- 

 ting on the right side, that the remoyal of the capsule on that 

 side is more generally fatal. 



It is not necessary to take account, in this connection, of 

 the contraction of the pupil, " turning " and other symptoms 

 referable to the nervous system, which have sometimes fol- 

 lowed these operations. These phenomena are undoubtedly 

 due to injury of adjacent parts, and not to extirpation of the 

 capsules. The only remaining question to determine is 

 whether the capsules have any thing to do with the formation 

 or change of pigment. Notwithstanding the assertion of 

 Dr. Brown-Sequard, that flakes of pigment and blood-crys- 

 tals differing from those found in normal blood are found in 

 animals deprived of the suprarenal capsules, this view is 

 adopted by few physiological authorities. Longet cites 

 the observations of Martin-Magron, 3 who examined daily, 

 with the greatest care, the blood of a cat that lived two 

 months after extirpation of the capsules, and could never 

 determine the pigmentary matters described by Brown- 



1 HARLEY, An Experimental Inquiry into the Functions of the Supra-Renal 

 Capsules, and their Supposed Connexion with Bronzed Skin. British and Foreign 

 Medico- Chirurgical Review, London, 1858, vol. xxi., p. 204, etseq. 



2 LONGET, Traite de physiologic, Paris, 1869, tome ii., p. 392. It does not 

 appear from this quotation that the experiments of Martin-Magron were ever 

 published elsewhere. 



