INTERACTION OF INTERNAL SECRETORY GLANDS 3ia 



The following schema is intended to represent the mutual 

 relations of the thyroid, adrenals and pancreas : 



THYROID 



PANCREAS ^ > 



Inhibition 



If we keep perfectly clearly before us the fact that this 

 interrelation is of an absolutely hypothetical nature, the 

 most of us will not be disposed to deny a heuristic value ta 

 such schematic presentation. 



It may well be that we can classify the ductless glands 

 in two groups, one group with an accelerator, the other with 

 a retarding functional effect upon the metabolism. The 

 first group, whose "hormones" apparently excite sympa- 

 thico tonic impulses, includes the thyroid, the chromaffine sys- 

 tem and perhaps the hypophysis. To the second, seem- 

 ingly antagonistic to the first group, belong the pancreas and 

 the parathyroids. The first group could stimulate the basic 

 protein destruction, carbohydrate mobilization, fat meta- 

 bolism, output of water and salt, and the galvanic irritabil- 

 ity of nerves; the second group, however, acts according 

 to all appearance in an inhibitory manner. 42 The strongest 

 criticism, unquestionably, comes when we discriminatively 

 examine the mutual relations of these functions. The idea 

 that a centre in the medulla regulates the provision of sugar 

 to the various tissues, which, as Falta supposes, "continu- 

 ously mobilizes, by way of the sympathetic nerves and the 

 adrenals, sugar in the liver, but exerts inhibitory influences 



42 W. Falta, Wiener klin. Wochenschr., 1909, p. 1059 ; Caro, Med. Klinik, 

 1910, 136; W. Falta, L. H. Newburgh and E. Nobel (v. Noorden's Clinic, 

 Vienna), Zeitschr. f. klin. Med., 72, 97, 1911. 



