HISTORY OF ENDOCRINE DOCTRINE 



63 



From the time of Brown- 

 Sequard on, experimental inves- 

 tigation of the subject moved so 

 rapidly and in so many different 

 directions that the general trend 

 of the theory became obscured or 

 lost in the details of controversy. 

 And further obfuseation was 

 brought about by the constant 

 succession of dissolving views of 

 the subject of carbohydrate me- 

 tabolism. In 1886, Joseph von 

 Mering produced an experimental 

 diabetes by the ingestion of 

 phlorizin. In 1889, J. von Mer- 

 ing and Oscar Minkowski ob- 

 tained diabetes by an experi- 

 mental excision of the pancreas. 

 The histological, pathological and 

 clinical studies of E. L. Opie 

 (1901), L. V. Ssobolew (1902), 



Fig. 11. Oscar Minkowski 

 ( 1858- ) 



Fig. 10. Joseph von Mering 

 (1849- ) 



and W. G. MacCallum (1909) in- 

 dicate that the source of this pan- 

 creatic glycosuria is to be found 

 in a specialized group of cells, 

 called the islands of Langerhans. 

 Thus, it would appear that the 

 pancreas possesses an internal se- 

 cretion as well as a digestive 

 function. 



The discovery of iodothyrin in 

 the body of Eugen Baumann (&) 

 in 1896 suggested the relation of 

 the thyroid gland to iodin 

 metabolism and an adjoining pair 

 of ductless glands, the parathy- 

 roids, discovered by the Swedish 

 anatomist, Ivar Sandstrom, in 

 1880, would appear, from experi- 

 ment, to have an influence on cal- 

 cium metabolism. In his thyroid- 

 ectomies of 1856, Schiff (b) noted 



