THE ADRENAL BODIES 151 



enabled to live five or six days. Post mortem it was found 

 that the grafted capsules had disappeared i.e., the graft did 

 not succeed. Injection of a saline extract of healthy glands 

 only prolonged the survival by about twenty -four hours. 



Now we come to some observations by Abelous and Langlois 

 upon which they themselves laid considerable stress, and which 

 have played a prominent part in all subsequent discussions on 

 the functions of the adrenal bodies. They found that intra- 

 venous or subcutaneous injection of the blood of a frog dying 

 after extirpation, into a frog recently operated upon induced 

 rapid paralysis and death. The same injection into a normal 

 frog only produces slight temporary symptoms. The authors 

 were convinced that death after extirpation of both capsules 

 is in reality due to the suppression of essential organs, and not 

 simply the result of the shock of the operation. They further 

 proved that the effects were not due to injury to the kidney. 

 Their theory was that death resulted from the accumulation in 

 the blood of one or several toxic substances of unknown nature, 

 and that the suprarenal capsules are capable of the elaboration 

 of a material which neutralizes the toxic effects of such 

 substances. The toxic symptoms were stated to be those of 

 curare-poisoning paralysis, that is to say, of the connections 

 between nerve and muscle. 



These observations were in the main confirmed by Gourfein, 

 who, however, could not satisfy himself that there was any 

 difference between winter and summer frogs as regards the 

 results of extirpation, and who denied also that the blood of 

 operated frogs, when injected into others, gives rise to symp- 

 toms like those of curare-poisoning. 



The same author also carried out a series of observations on 

 pigeons and tritons. The pigeons only survived four to 

 twenty -four hours if total extirpation had been performed ; 

 if only one-eighth to one-tenth of the organ remained behind, 

 the animals lived fifteen days. Unilateral extirpation in 

 tritons produced no symptoms. If only a speck of one adrenal 

 remained behind, this was sufficient to keep the animal alive 

 for from eighteen days to nine weeks. 



Pettit was apparently the first to operate upon fishes. He 

 performed a series of experiments upon the eel, having chosen 

 this animal because its adrenals are placed on the ventral surface 

 of the kidneys, a condition which is rare in Teleosts. He did 



