958 INFLUENCE OF DUCTLESS GLANDS ON METABOLISM. 



Conclusions. It may be considered probable that the suprarenal 

 capsules are continually secreting into the blood an active material, which, 

 although present in that fluid only in minute quantities, may yet be suf- 

 ficient to produce very distinct effects upon the metabolic processes of 

 muscular tissue, and especially the muscular tissues of the vascular 



system. It has, in fact, been stated by 

 Cybulski, and this statement has been 

 confirmed by Langlois and by Biecll, 1 that 

 the blood of the suprarenal vein contains 

 a sufficient amount of the active prin- 

 ciple of suprarenal extract to produce a 

 marked f ise of blood pressure when intra- 

 venously injected. I have, in spite of 

 careful experiments, not been able myself 

 to confirm this statement. Nor is it 

 easy to understand how it can be true, 

 A - since such blood is constantly flowing 



B. 



FIG. 92. A. Ergograph tracing of a person suffering from Addison's disease. 

 B. Tracing from the same person after six weeks' treatment with suprarenal 

 extract. Langlois. A, natural size ; B, reduced to one-half. 



into the vena cava in larger quantity than these observers injected. 

 But whether we are able to show it experimentally or not, there is 

 very little doubt of the fact that the materials formed pass somehow 

 or other into the blood ; and when we compare the results of supra- 

 renal injection with the effects obtained from the removal and from 

 disease of these organs, we can come to no other conclusion than 

 that we have before us a notable instance of internal secretion; and 

 that the effect of such secretion passed into the blood is beneficial 

 to the muscular contraction and tone of the cardiac and vascular 

 walls, and even of the skeletal muscles, appears very evident from 

 the results both of removal of the organs and of injection of their 

 extracts. 2 



1 Arcli.f. d. ges. PhysioL, Bonn, 1897, Bd. Ixvii. 



- This conclusion, which is the one arrived at by Oliver and myself, is different from that 

 of Abelous and Langlois, which they formulate thus : "Les capsules surre'nales out pour 

 fonction de neutraliser ou de detruire des substances toxiques e'labore'es an cours des 

 echanges chimiques et specialement au cours du travail des muscles." This statement, 

 which may be taken to set forth the auto-intoxication theory (supra, p. 949), was made in 

 1891, and therefore before the effects of injection of the extract of the medulla were known. 



