76 GLANDS IN HEALTH AND DISEASE 



be cured by administering thyroid extract; can we 

 cure an analogous disease of the adrenals by the 

 administration of adrenal extract? Can we re- 

 lieve patients suffering from Addison's disease by 

 any such method? We have already indicated that 

 the answer must be in the negative. We can supply 

 no good reason for the failure, unless we assume 

 that the adrenal hormones, unlike the thyroid ones, 

 are quickly destroyed in the system ; and even then 

 a veil of obscurity still overshadows the situation. 

 We must remember in this connection, as pointing 

 to how far from a complete solution we really are, 

 that the most characteristic feature of Addison's 

 disease, the pigmentation of the skin, has never 

 been experimentally produced. 



"Grafting." From what has been, and what will 

 be said on the subject of grafting (see more par- 

 ticularly Chapter VI), one might suppose that the 

 use of such a method would be an improvement 

 over the use of extracts. If the graft takes and a 

 circulatory system is set up, the gland ought to 

 behave like any organ of the body that is "alive" 

 and that functions properly. Theoretically it 

 ought to do so; in practice it seldom does. Sur- 

 geons in the late war have shown much ingenuity 

 in grafting pieces of skin; occasionally thyroid 

 grafts have been carried out successfully ; but when 

 we come to adrenal grafting we can record little 

 else but failure. The gland atrophies and the med- 



