68 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE ADRENALS. 



caused could be counteracted by injections of suprarenal secre- 

 tion. Thus, Abelous and Langlois 139 found that the fatal 

 effects of removal of both organs in frogs could be delayed by 

 the insertion of small pieces of the removed gland into the 

 dorsal lymph-sac, and also by injections of suprarenal extract. 

 Cybulski 140 also noted that intravenous injections of 1 cubic 

 centimeter of a 10-per-cent. solution of suprarenal extract 

 caused all the toxic phenomena to disappear after the extirpa- 

 tion of both adrenals, the effect lasting from a few minutes to 

 one-half hour. In normal animals the extract merely increased 

 pressure, lowered the pulse-rate, and accelerated respiration. 



The oxygen-ratio of hepatic tissue first claims our atten- 

 tion, since it is possible that the suprarenal secretion might 

 lose its identity as such by yielding to the liver some of its 

 own molecular constituents: i.e., constituents endowed with 

 less affinity for the remaining suprarenal components than for 

 structures containing, as does the liver, a high ratio of fixed 

 oxygen. The labors of Schmiedeberg, Jaquet, and Salkowski 141 

 may advantageously be used to ascertain this point. 



Schmiedeberg, to study the oxidation of living tissues, 

 used benzilic alcohol and salicylic aldehyde, because these sub- 

 stances do not burn in air, while they are easily consumed in 

 the organism. Their oxidation products could only, therefore, 

 originate in the latter. Jaquet 142 also demonstrated the cor- 

 rectness of Schmiedeberg's observation that the blood alone 

 caused but an extremely small quantity of benzilic alcohol to 

 become oxidized into benzoic acid, while salicylic aldehyde 

 was in no way influenced. His researches further confirmed 

 Schmiedeberg's discovery that, when these agents were simply 

 dissolved in the blood, they were easily oxidized into benzoic 

 acid by living tissues. The blood, as a whole, seemed to retard 

 oxidation, since the process occurred with greater rapidity 

 when blood-plasma alone i.e., serum devoid of all its cor- 

 puscular elements was used as a solvent. Not only was lung- 

 tissue, for instance, found to act perfectly as an oxidizant, but 



189 Abelous and Langlois: Archives de Physiologic, vol. xlli, p. 267, 1892. 



140 Cybulski : Gazette Lekarska, March 23, 1895. 



141 Schmiedeberg, Jaquet, and Salkowski: Archives G6n6rales de M6decine, 

 March, 1898. 



142 Jaquet: Archiv fur exp. Path., 1892. 



