CHAPTER III. 



THE INTERNAL SECRETION OF THE ADRENALS 



IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE GENERAL 



OXIDATION PROCESSES. 



THE ADRENAL SECRETION AND THE OXIDIZING SUBSTANCE 

 OF THE BLOOD. 



STIMULATION of the adrenals by means of a drug or toxic 

 gives rise, we have seen, to a marked increase of functional 

 activity in all organs. Quinine, for instance, causes wakeful- 

 ness, congestive headache, and sometimes maniacal delirium, 

 flushed face, spontaneous epistaxis, muscular twitchings re- 

 sembling those caused by strychnine, active uterine contrac- 

 tions, etc. How explain this increased activity produced 

 through these organs? It is evident that it must be due to 

 the increased production of suprarenal secretion induced by 

 the drug and a correspondingly enhanced activity of the oxida- 

 tion processes. But how does the blood become surcharged 

 with oxygen in order to produce these effects? Whether these 

 be brought on by stimulation of the cerebro-spinal centers, 

 increased blood-pressure, contraction of the central vascular 

 trunks, or any other process, we are always brought back to 

 the primary active factor: oxygen. Does the corpuscular 

 haemoglobin take it up in excess? This is hardly probable; 

 since the haemoglobin-molecule, in assuming the state of 

 oxyhaemoglobin, appropriates, under normal conditions, all the 

 oxygen it can carry. Is the proportion of haemoglobin in the 

 red corpuscles increased in order to correspondingly augment 

 their carrying capacity? The suddenness with which some 

 drugs amyl nitrite, for example produce active stimulation 

 precludes such a deduction. 



Does the serum itself take up oxygen in the lungs? The 



presence of suprarenal secretion in the serum would alone 



render this possible; but so little oxygen can be obtained from 



blood-plasma with the air-pump that the idea seems hardly 



(130) 



