THE ANTERIOR PITUITARY AS THE ADRENAL CENTER. 219 



thetic nerve utilizes only borrowed power originating in the 

 upper portion of the spinal axis; the case is the same in respect 

 to its influence upon the heart, and also with most visceral 

 reflexes, the centers of which are in the cord; so that even 

 the expression 'sympathetic system' to-day means nothing." 



If the pituitary' s anterior lobe is the nervous center of the 

 adrenals, the confusion in our ideas of the functions of this 

 system are easily explained, since many phenomena ascribed 

 to it have the adrenals as their source. The latter organs ful- 

 filling their functions through a secretion, a further cause of 

 confusion must have insinuated itself in all the experimental 

 work connected with the sympathetic, so that the latter has, 

 in reality, never appeared in its true light. Eelieved, however, 

 of all the elements of conflicting testimony which the adrenals 

 involve, its true role in the organism cannot but soon be ascer- 

 tained. Indeed, the system of which the pituitary body seems 

 to be the center would constitute with the adrenals an abso- 

 lutely autonomous one. This will appear among the data now 

 to be submitted, which indicate that a direct connection exists 

 between these two organs. 



As is well known, response is not as prompt when the cut 

 ends of some sympathetic nerves the splanchnic, for instance 

 are electrically stimulated, as when the cerebro-spinal nerves 

 are treated in the same manner. When the splanchnic nerve 

 is thus stimulated, several seconds elapse before a slow con- 

 traction of the intestines i.e., of their muscular coat begins, 

 and this continues some time after the stimulation ceases: 

 evidence that we are dealing with something more than a 

 nervous impulse and with an indirect effect. This recalls ex- 

 periments to which we have already referred and which now 

 explain this anomaly. Dreyer 36 observed that the effects of the 

 suprarenal blood-raising constituent were increased after stim- 

 ulation of the splanchnic. Biedl 57 also noted that when the 

 suprarenal branches of the splanchnic nerve were cut below 

 the diaphragm, and the lower fragment was stimulated, injec- 

 tions of blood that flowed from the adrenal veins into animals 

 brought on the characteristic phenomena. That the indirect 



56 Dreyer: American Journal of Physiology, Jan. 18, 1899. 

 87 Biedl: Pfliiger's Archiv, Bd. Ivii, H. 9 and 10, 1897. 



