730 DEAN LEWIS 



with early maturity of the sex glands. As a result of this a pair of rats 

 after anterior lobe feeding over a number of months bred earlier and 

 oftener, ha'ving two pregnancies in 7 months, as compared with none in 

 the female of the control pair. 1 The effect of anterior lobe feeding lasted 

 throughout the adult life of the animal. The control rat never reached 

 the degree of development and activity shown by animals receiving the 

 anterior lobe extract. For even at the age of 10 months, after eight and 

 one-half months of anterior lobe feeding, the latter still showed a greater, 

 more active and mature sexual development than the control. 



The feeding of pituitary anterior lobe to parent rats exerted its stimu- 

 lating influence upon the offspring in intra-uterine life and during lacta- 

 tion, and, when the experiment was carried further, and the feeding to 

 the young continued after weaning, it had even greater stimulating effect 

 upon growth, weight and development and caused earlier and more fre^- 

 quent breeding and an increased number of offspring in the litters. The 

 stimulating effect upon the sex glands was greater the longer the influence 

 of anterior lobe administration was exerted. 



Posterior Lobe Feeding. The extract of pituitary posterior lobe, even 

 after prolonged administration, did not stimulate growth in general, nor 

 the development of the sex glands, as did anterior lobe even after a very 

 short period. Thus, for example, there was a very much less marked 

 development of the sex glands after administration of posterior lobe for 

 seven and one-half months, than after anterior lobe administration for 

 two and one-half months. The posterior lobe element in the whole gland 

 had an undoubted retarding influence upon the development of the sex 

 glands, an effect very similar to that of ovarian extract upon the testes. 

 This is shown in the relatively incomplete development of the testes, for 

 example, after eight and one-half months of posterior lobe feeding. If 

 given in too large a dose, the extract causes in the rats loss of weight, mild 

 enteritis and increased intestinal peristalsis. 2 



It will be seen from the experiments dealing with hypophyseal feeding 

 how the results differ and how complicated the problems are when an 

 attempt is made to reconcile them with clinical observations. Acromegaly 

 is duo to an over activity of the anterior lobe. As before mentioned it is 

 probably due to overactivity of the eosinophile cells, but impotence in the 

 male and anienorrhea in the female are often among the earliest symptoms; 

 quite the contrary of the activity in the sexual organs resulting from feed- 

 ing the anterior lobe as reported by Goetsch. Hypophyseal feeding has 

 not been successful in cases of dystrophia adiposogenitalis, even in those 

 cases in which the syndrome has developed as a result of failure of the 



1 The failure of a while rat to breed within this period obviously indicates that it 

 or its mate was not normal. U. G. H. 



3 Several careful observers, using more adequate series, have failed to corroborate 

 the results obtained by Goetsch on feeding hypophysis as herein reported. K. Gr. H. 



