SECRETION. 461 



Removal of the anterior lobe alone was followed by death as certainly as when 

 the entire gland was removed. Removal of the posterior lobe alone was not 

 followed by noticeable effects. From these facts Paulesco asserted that the 

 hypophysis is an organ indispensable to life as its removal rapidly eventuates in 

 death, and that of its different parts the anterior lobe is the more important. 

 Crowe, Gushing and Homans have more recently reported a series of 100 

 operations for the removal of the hypophysis, the results of which are corrob- 

 orative in many respects of the results of Paulesco. It was found that the 

 duration of life in adult dogs was from two to three days and in young dogs 

 about eleven days. In a few cases the animals survived for several weeks 

 but a post-mortem examination showed that small viable portions of the 

 gland had escaped removal. Among the many symptoms that followed to- 

 tal hypophysectomy according to these experimenters the more striking after 

 24 hours were a lowering of body-temperature, unsteadiness of gait and stiff- 

 ness of movement, a fall of blood-pressure, feeble and slow respiration, 

 muscle twitchings, lethargy, coma, and death. In old animals there was 

 occasional glycosuria; in young animals polyuria. Total removal of the 

 anterior lobe alone in this series of experiments was also as fatal as removal 

 of the entire gland. 



The Effects of Partial Removal of the Anterior Lobe. When only a portion 

 of the anterior lobe was removed the animal survived for a much longer 

 period than when the removal was complete. The duration of life appar- 

 ently depended on the amount and the cellular activity of the parts left be- 

 hind. As a result of the partial removal only there developed a series of 

 phenomena to which the term cachexia hypophyseopriva has been given. 

 These phenomena varied somewhat in accordance with the age of the 

 animal. Adult animals became adipose and degenerated sexually, young 

 animals likewise became adipose but they remained undersized and failed 

 to develop sexual characteristics and hence sexual infantilism persisted. 

 The organs of reproduction in both sexes remained rudimentary. The 

 temperature was subnormal and nutritive disorders of the skin developed. 

 These various symptoms were attributed at the time to the partial removal 

 of the anterior lobe alone and hence a deficiency of secretion, but the results 

 of a series of experiments, subsequently published by Gushing, led to the 

 belief that some of these phenomena were due to injury or impairment of the 

 normal function of the posterior lobe at, or subsequent to, the time of the 

 operation. Just which of these phenomena are due to a diminished secre- 

 tion of the anterior lobe and which to a diminished secretion of the posterior 

 lobe future investigations only will determine. 



The Effects of Pathologic Conditions. In recent years the idea has gradu- 

 ally developed that certain pathologic states of the body are associated in 

 some way with pathologic states of the pituitary body. Thus the condition 

 of gigantism which begins in youth and the condition of acromegaly which 

 appears in adult life are believed to be the result of a hypersecretion of 

 the anterior lobe, which in turn may be due to a hyperplasia of the gland 

 elements excited by a variety of causes. In both gigantism and acromegaly 

 there is an increased activity in the nutritive process leading to an over- 

 growth of osseous tissue and the overlying structures. In the former con- 

 dition the overgrowth is general; in the latter it is confined to the face and 



