RELATION SUPRARENAL GLANDS TO CIRCULATION 231 



Disorders." It has been found by Hoskins and Wheelon that parathyroid 

 extirpation is one means of augmenting sympathetic irritability that 

 renders the animal (dog) more sensitive to epinephrin as it does to other 

 sorts of stimulation. 



Baraden (1916) made a series of investigations upon the vasoconstric- 

 tor mechanism, using the perfused ear of the rabbit as a test object. He 

 found among other things that phosphorus poisoning results in the diminu- 

 tion of the vasoconstrictor effect of epinephrin. 



Simonds (1916) reported an extensive series of observations on the 

 condition of the vasomotor mechanism in dogs subjected to anaphylactic 

 shock and peptone poisoning. He tested the condition of the peripheral 

 structures by the administration of standard doses of epinephrin, such 

 as before the poisoning evoked clean-cut pressor reactions. Following 

 the poisoning, the reaction was found to be much diminished or entirely 

 lost, 



Schiff and Epstein have found that general debility may materially 

 modify the reaction. Children with normal pulse quality were observed 

 to react to epinephrin with a marked increase in blood pressure. On 

 changing from the upright to the horizontal posture^ the blood-pressure 

 remained unchanged. Pale 'children with pulse of poor volume and ten- 

 sion, but without appreciable vasolability, reacted to epinephrin with 

 a minimal increase of arterial pressure or with none at all. On lying down 

 the blood-pressure was somewhat increased. Pale children with pulse of 

 poor tension and volume but with apparent vasolability showed a prompt 

 but very slight pressor reaction to epinephrin and no change in blood- 

 pressure when the recumbent posture was assumed. These data were 

 interpreted as indicating that in the debilitated children there is a func- 

 tional inferiority of the vascular system leading to defective response to 

 stimulation of the vasomotor innervation. 



Collip(a) (1920) reported that the pressor reaction to epinephrin is 

 augmented and prolonged by the administration of tissue extracts. He 

 worked upon dogs and rabbits wider ether anesthesia. The method in 

 brief was to determine the reaction to a standard dose of epinephrin and 

 then to administer intravenously extracts of such tissues as spleen, skeletal 

 muscle, and parathyroid glands, and to follow this with the standard dose 

 of epinephrin. In a typical case it was found that 3 c.c. of the drug in 

 1 :50,000 dilution produced in a dog a rise of pressure of 32 mm. with 

 a return to normal in 40 seconds. Five minutes after the administration 

 of 25 c.c. of extract of ox spleen, the same dose of epinephrin caused a 

 rise of 52 mm. in pressure with a return to normal within four minutes. 

 Collip ascribes this augmenting effect to some undetermined change in 

 the vasomotor mechanism, but whether the point of action is the nerve 

 ending, the nerve fiber, or nerve cell was undetermined. He inclined to 

 the view, however, that the reaction is peripheral. That it is to some 



