4 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE ADRENALS. 



issue is not immediate; and in frogs, rabbits, guinea-pigs, and 

 dogs the post-operative life varies from an average of forty 

 hours in mild weather to twelve or thirteen days in the hiber- 

 nating frog in winter. In a series of fifty-nine rats from which 

 Boinet 4 removed both adrenals, four lived several months. 

 Some evidence of shock should have appeared in at least a 

 small proportion of the operated animals. Not only was this 

 not the case, but the fact that in four of them the prolongation 

 of -life was found to have been due to accessory or compensa- 

 tory organs demonstrates the weakness of the shock hypothesis 

 as the main cause of death in decapsulated animals. Further- 

 more, the average symptomatology of post-operative life in 

 various species inco-ordination, muscular weakness or excite- 

 ment, and tremors; then paralysis of the hind-quarters, with 

 gradual involvement of the trunk and upper extremities, con- 

 traction of the pupil, gradual and steady slowing of the cardio- 

 vascular rhythm, convulsions, hasmaturia, epistaxis, etc. in no 

 way resembles that of shock. 



Finally, complete removal of but one organ seems to affect 

 animals so slightly that they appear to suffer no inconvenience; 

 they continue to live month after month, "quite well and 

 active"; i.e., until the experimenter removes the second adrenal, 

 when death occurs within thirty-six hours. This fact, added 

 to many others elucidated by the labors of Abelous and Lan- 

 glois, 6 Oliver and Schafer, 6 Cybulski, 7 Szymonowicz, 8 Gourfein, 9 

 Langlois, 10 Swale Vincent, 11 Boinet, 12 A. G. Auld, 13 among 

 others, suggests that there is no legitimate ground after elim- 

 inating all factors that obviously tend to disguise the source of 

 physiological phenomena and pervert their meaning to doubt 

 that, as Brown-Sequard was first to show, extirpation of both 



Boinet: Marseille Medical, Sept. 1, 1899. 



Abelous and Langlois: Archives de Physiologic norm, et path., vol. xiii 

 p. 267. 



Oliver and Schafer: Journal of Physiology, vol. xviii, 1895 



Cybulski : Gazeta Lekarska, March 23, 1895. 



Szymonowicz: Archiv f. d. Gesam. Phys., vol. Ixiv, 1896. 



Gourfein: Revue MSdicale de la Suisse Romande, March, 1896. 

 1 Langlois: Loc. cit., 1898. 



1 Swale Vincent: Journal of Physiology, Sept. 11, 1897; Feb. 17 1898' Apr 

 25, 1898. 



12 Boinet: Loc. cit. 



13 A. G. Auld: British Medical Journal, June 3, 1899. 



