THE SPLENO-PANCREATIC INTERNAL SECRETION. 



413 



antipyrin, that, "in the cases in which it exercises an anti- 

 diabetic action, this substance acts, not by activating the 

 destruction of sugar, but by preventing its formation" 30 : the 

 result, we would add, of reduced suprarenal activity. 



We have made considerable headway in the last few pages. 

 In the first place, we have ascertained (1) that zymogen and 

 trypsinogen were not identical; (2) that the Lepine glycolytic 

 enzyme and the oxidizing substance were the same thing, and, 

 this being the case, that (3) there was no ground for the 

 hypothesis that the islands of Langerhans were the source of 

 the glycolytic substance. 



In view of these facts, what is the nature of the product 

 the existence of which the prominent nuclei and the granules 

 observed in the protoplasm of the islands indicate? This is 

 elucidated by two other features just brought out, namely: (4) 

 that glycosuria may be the result of intoxication by toxic 

 albuminoid bodies incident upon an insufficiency of trypsin, 

 and (5) that disease limited to the islands, as shown by Opie, 

 can cause glycosuria. It is plain that, in the latter case, the 

 permeability of the ampulla being alone compromised, the 

 pancreatic lobules that contain no islands are free as to the 

 elimination of their secretion into the ducts. If they produce 

 trypsinogen, i.e., trypsin, why are the functions of the latter 

 inhibited or absent as indicated by the glycosuria? The only 

 logical answer to this question is that the islands of Langerhans 

 alone secrete trypsinogen. 



This fact, when added to others reviewed, normally leads 

 to another deduction: i.e., that, in addition to any other func- 

 tion it may possess, the spleen and the islands of Langerhans 

 are functionally united in the formation of a ferment, trypsin, 

 which is able to digest albuminoid bodies in the blood-stream. 



We can now readily understand why the spleen and the 

 pancreas are so intimately connected through their nervous 

 supply. Indeed, this throws light upon a phenomenon which 

 we approach almost with diffidence: i.e., Claude Bernard's 

 experimental glycosuria obtained by puncturing the medulla 

 oblongata. "That pathological conditions of the central nerv- 



80 The italics are Professor Lupine's. 



