ISOLATION OF THE "PANCREATIC HORMONE" 261 



of dog's blood, but in the living animal induces a hyper- 

 glycasmia and a glycosuria of low grade. Objection has 

 been raised to these findings, suggestion being made that 

 the hyperglycsemia is not due to "antipancreatin" but 

 simply to withdrawal of the blood required for examination. 

 The writer is not in position to decide whether this objection 

 is well founded or not, but all these matters are so compli- 

 cated and ambiguous that he is not disposed to promise any 

 too much from them for the future of the problem. 



Isolation of the "Pancreatic Hormone." There seems to 

 be no more promise in the attempts to isolate the active 

 principle of the pancreas which is concerned in carbohydrate 

 metabolism, the so-called " pancreatic hormone. " Bealiza- 

 tion of the pious wish to solve the enigma of pancreatic 

 diabetes in the reagent glass seemed almost within grasp 

 some few years ago when at the Congress of Internists of 

 1907 Zuelzer 39 excited attention by his announcement that 

 by injection of pancreatic preparations it is possible to check 

 the course of adrenin glycosuria, and by administering 

 pancreatic substance to the experiment animal prior to in- 

 jection of adrenin to prevent it. Based upon this observa- 

 tion, which has been confirmed from many sources, 40 

 Zuelzer 41 later endeavored to apply the discovery to the 

 treatment of human -diabetes. The decided toxicity of the 

 pancreas preparations (occasioned by the trypsin), how- 

 ever, interfered. But Zuelzer believed, nevertheless, that 

 by a method which he kept secret, he had successfully 

 detoxified his "pancreatic hormone " sufficiently to permit 

 him to venture to inject it intravenously into diabetic sub- 

 jects. In a number of cases of diabetes he succeeded in 



89 Zuelzer, Verh. d. Kongr. f. innere Med., 1907, 258; Berliner klin. 

 Wochenschr., 1907, 474. 



40 C. Frugoni, Makaroff, J. Gautrelet, J. Forschbach, K. Glassner and E. P. 

 Pick; for Literature, cf. O. v. Fiirth, and C. Schwarz, Biochem. Zeitschr., 31, 

 114, 1911. 



41 Zuelzer, Dohrn and Marxer, Deutsch. med. Wochenschr., 1908, 1380; 

 Zuelzer, Zeitschr. f. exper. Pathol., 5, 307, 1909. 



