182 W. B. CANNON 



registered, 'becomes gradually much reduced in the course of time, e. g., 

 from 2.5 g. to 0.3 g. per minute (1917 (e)) indicating that the experi- 

 mental procedure has been lowering the pressure. The very abundant blood 

 supply to the suprarenals, more abundant than in any other organ in the 

 body, according to Neuman, is probably associated with their close de- 

 pendence on abundance of supply. The reduced flow, therefore, should not 

 be regarded as a condition of little moment. 



4. The average output of the suprarenals per kilo per minute, as- 

 sayed by eye and blood pressure methods by Stewart and Rogoff was 0.0006 

 mg. epinephrin; the average output assayed by their use of intestine and 

 uterus segments was less than half this amount (0.00025 mg.). "It is 

 quite impossible," they state, "to explain this difference as due to accidental 

 variations in the rate of output in the animals of the two series. It must, 

 therefore, be concluded that some of the epinephrin is lost when the adrenal 

 vein blood is drawn, in the interval which necessarily elapses, and under 

 the manipulation which the blood necessarily undergoes before it is ap- 

 plied to the segments" (19l7(e)). If epinephrin is lost through manipu- 

 lations and delay, may not variations of the output, reflexly induced, be 

 minimized or extinguished by the time the tests are made? 



5. The foregoing considerations are offered as possible factors in 

 accounting for the difference between the conclusions of Stewart and Rog- 

 off and all other investigators of suprarenal secretion. Stewart and Ro- 

 goff (w) have argued that their method alone gives reliable data, because it 

 is quantitatively correct (1920). If, however, the fundamental circum- 

 stance of their experiments, the operative procedure, is so disturbing as 

 to induce a pathological state, the quantitative method does not report 

 on a physiological process. And if an undetermined amount of epinephrin 

 is regularly "lost" in the manipulations incidental to testing it, the assays 

 are valueless. These are the central considerations in the differences which 

 have arisen. To account for the positive effects reported by all other in- 

 vestigators, Stewart and Rogoff have assumed, without proof to justify 

 their assumption, that these positive effects are due to shifts of the cir- 

 culation, with consequent concentrations of epinephrin in the blood. They 

 have then proceeded with quantitative methods giving negative results, 

 and have not applied quantitative methods to learn whether their explana- 

 tion of the wholly contradictory results of others is correct. Until this is 

 done, the prime circumstances of their method remain questionable. 



The Method of Gley and Quinquaud. Gley and Quinquaud(e) (1918) 

 removed blood from the inferior cava immediately above the opening 

 of the subhepatic veins and again from the right or left ventricle, in 

 each case after splanchnic stimulation. The blood thus obtained was in- 

 jected in 20 c.c. amounts into other dogs weighing from 4 to nearly 10 

 kilos. Only the blood which was taken from directly above the opening of 

 the suprarenal veins caused any rise of pressure in the dog injected. They 



