696 INTERNAL SECRETIONS AND PRESERVATION OF LIFE. 



acid was only slightly, if at all, increased. We were exceedingly 

 anxious to give larger doses of nucleic acid, but were unable to 

 do so because of certain rather disagreeable symptoms (severe 

 muscular tremors) which arose after the larger quantity had 

 been given." 



The augmented phosphoric-acid excretion to which the 

 authors refer, and which they state cannot be accounted for 

 by the phosphorus taken in the form of nucleins, has doubtless 

 suggested to the reader as primary cause the increased func- 

 tional activity of the adrenal system induced by the phosphorus 

 ingested: an interpretation sustained by the presence of severe 

 muscular tremors, "which arose after the larger quantity had 

 been given." Of course, phosphorus here acts like any other 

 toxic as a stimulant, the anterior pituitary body responding 

 to the effects of organic poisons as well as those foreign to the 

 system as a chemical entity. 



Still, this involves the necessity of showing that leucocytes 

 are themselves the seat of the enhanced metabolism and the 

 source of the excess of phosphoric acid to which the muscular 

 tremors are due, in accord with our previous statements, to 

 that effect. Again, if, as we have suggested, the granules rep- 

 resent the leucocytic secretion, an excess of granules must 

 occur under the influence of the stimulation of the adrenal 

 system induced. That such is the case is shown by the follow- 

 ing casual remark of Stokes and "Wegefarth, 28 who, as stated, 

 based their studies of the free granules derived from leucocytes 

 upon examinations of blood taken from about five hundred 

 persons: "In perfectly fresh specimens the granules were not 

 numerous, but they seemed somewhat increased in patients who 

 had been taking tonics or various alcoholic drinks." 



This, in turn, involves a query as to the manner in which 

 the anterior pituitary body becomes primarily stimulated when 

 nucleins are taken in excess, for it would seem that, locked up 

 in the perinuclear vacuole of the leucocytes, their phosphorus 

 could not influence the adrenal system through the blood- 

 stream. This would doubtless hold were the intracellular 

 process to cease at any time, but, as this must begin as soon 



28 Stokes and Wegefarth: Loc. cit. 



