DO ADRENALS HAVE REGULATING INFLUENCE ? 309 



What you don't see, you're sure cannot be real; 

 What you don't weigh, ne'er has a weight for you; 

 What you don't coin, you think don't count a sou." 



The author will not evade the point. But for the present 

 in biochemistry we make the most progress if we hold to the 

 things we can see, and weigh and count. 



Do the Adrenals Have a Regulating Influence on the 

 Normal Carbohydrate Metabolism? Even were a positive 

 proof obtained that the sugar-puncture acts essentially like 

 an adrenin glycosuria, it would still be far from proving 

 that under normal physiological conditions the internal 

 secretion of the adrenals possesses a regulative effect on the 

 metabolism of carbohydrates. Even if a sudden massive 

 expulsion of suprarenin from the adrenal medulla does cause 

 a glycosuria this might very well be a toxic glycosuria, of 

 which there are so many examples. 



Whether the minimal quantities of adrenin which in 

 normal conditions enter the blood have anything to do with 

 the liquidation of the glycogen stores and with the regula- 

 tion of carbohydrate metabolism, remains, therefore, an 

 open question, although many writers today regard a rela- 

 tion of this sort as a settled fact. Thus Falta 30 thinks that 

 every diabetic disturbance of metabolism may be looked 

 upon as a predominance of sympathetic impulses over the 

 autonomous ones. ' 'If the cause of it is seen rather in some 

 insufficiency of the pancreas it is proper to speak of a pan- 

 creatogenous diabetes ; if it is rather in an excessive func- 

 tion of the circulatory system, to say it is an adrenalogenous 

 one. ' ' It should be added, however, that the recognition of 

 a hypoglycaemia and increased tolerance for carbohydrates 

 in a few cases of Addison's disease 31 is in direct contrast to 



80 W. Falta, Prager. med. Wochenschr., 1910, No. 7. 



21 O. Forges, 1. c.; H. Eppinger, W. Falta and C. Rudinger, Zeitschr. f. 

 klin. Med., 66, 50, 1908. 



