INTERNAL SECRETIONS 91 



Suprarenal Capsules. Each of the kidneys is capped by a 

 pyramidal body weighing about J ounce. Small though it 

 be, this organ is essential to life. As Dr. Addison was the first 

 to discover, in 1855, its disease results in a cycle of symptoms 

 which invariably has a fatal termination. A college friend 

 of the writer suffered from " slackness." Before he had 

 finished a set of tennis, he abandoned the game, and spent the 

 rest of the afternoon lying on the grass, wrapped in a rug. 

 After hall, although he earnestly desired to conquer the 

 subtleties of the Greek grammar, he fell asleep over his books. 

 As his countenance was not ruddy merely, but bronzed like 

 that of a man who has just returned from a yachting cruise, 

 he was the butt of many a joke. Although already a quali- 

 fied medical man, who had been in practice he had come 

 to the University with a view to adding the degree of M.D. 

 to his M.R.C.S. he had no suspicion that he was ill. Thought 

 he wanted " freshening up." Took a trip across the Atlantic. 

 Stumbled over a rope on landing ; broke his thigh. Spent 

 two months in a New York Hospital, but the bone did not mend. 

 At last, the surgeons, growing anxious, sent him back to 

 London. He was seen by a leading physician, who told him 

 that he was suffering from Addison's disease. Two months 

 later he died of failure of the heart. Disease of the supra- 

 renal capsules is usually of tuberculous origin. Its symptoms : 

 muscular weakness and excessive liability to fatigue ; ab- 

 normal pigmentation of the skin ; lowered blood-pressure, and 

 consequent sensitiveness to cold ; cardiac weakness. As the 

 pigmentation of the skin and mucous membrane is not in- 

 variable, and since it may occur without disease of the capsules, 

 it is not improbable that it is due to disease of the abdominal 

 sympathetic ganglia, which are usually affected at the same 

 time as the capsules. 



The suprarenal capsules are composed of columns of epi- 

 thelial cells, which radiate from a large vein in their centre. 

 They are abundantly supplied with blood and with nerves. 

 The cells near the vein are much larger than those in the peri- 

 pheral portions of the columns. Amongst them are nerve-cells 

 resembling those of the sympathetic system. 



The history of the suprarenal capsules is almost as obscure 

 as that of the thyroid gland. In the embryo they are relatively 



