VARIATIONS IN ADRENAL FUNCTIONAL ACTIVITY. 25 



maintained by Dubois, 61 who, having isolated toxic alkaloids 

 from adrenal substance identical in some of their reactions 

 with muscle-toxins, concluded that the adrenals occluded prod- 

 ucts of organic waste and modified them in situ, but that they 

 did not seem to secrete any special substance destined to enter 

 the circulation. 



This hypothesis does not seem to us to be able to stand 

 close scrutiny. The destruction of poisons within the adrenals 

 themselves involves the passage of the systemic blood through 

 their cellular elements. When in the cadaver we note the 

 relative dimensions of all the vessels within a narrow radius 

 of the adrenals, it becomes apparent that the conditions are 

 not such as to indicate a provision for the passage of the blood 

 through these organs. The arteries, derived from branches of 

 the phrenic, the renal and often directly from the aorta, are 

 relatively insignificant vessels and totally inadequate to allow 

 the passage through them of enough blood to represent the 

 three hundred and sixty grammes which the cardiac ventricles 

 send into the arteries at each systole, their total sectional area 

 being but a small fraction of that of the aorta, their source of 

 supply. The utter impossibility for the whole volume of blood 

 in the organism to pass through the adrenals in 24 seconds, 

 the length of time required to complete the entire systemic 

 circulation, hardly needs to be emphasized. Again were the 

 blood-stream to traverse the organs, their veins would, to a 

 degree at least, correspond, in diameter, with their arteries. 

 But such is not the case; they are disproportionately large: a 

 fact which in itself shows that the efferent blood must be the 

 carrier of some added product obtained from the glandular 

 structure. It also seems obvious that, if the adrenals were 

 intended to asepticise blood in transit through them, the 

 afferent channels would normally contain blood from all parts 

 of the organism and charged with toxic elements, while the 

 efferent channels would convey the purified blood charged with 

 the suprarenal secretion to the heart, ready for redistribution. 

 Instead of this the afferent vessels receive their blood from the 

 aorta, arterial blood, while the efferent vessels pour their 



61 Dubois: Archives de Pathologic norm, et path., vol. viii, 1896. 



