THE PITUITARY 363 



lobe activity is essential to effective carbohydrate metabolism ; 

 an intravenous injection of posterior lobe extract produces 

 glycogenolysis, and its continued administration in excessive 

 amounts leads to emaciation. A diminution of posterior lobe 

 secretion occurring in certain conditions of hypo-pituitarism 

 (whether experimentally produced or the result of disease) 

 leads to an acquired high tolerance for sugars, with the resultant 

 accumulation of fat." 



It is reported that, contrary to what might have been 

 expected, removal of the posterior lobe increases the flow of 

 urine rather than diminishes it. There is often a true diabetes 

 insipidus, lasting for some time. 



Experiments upon puppies disclose a persistence of sexual 

 infantilism. There are as well changes in the testes, ovaries, 

 thyroid, thymus and adrenal cortex and medulla. Moreover, 

 changes occur in the reverse direction, for example in the 

 pituitary after castration or thyroidectomy, and Gushing reports 

 changes in the posterior lobe after extirpation of the pancreas. 

 So far as can be gathered from Cushing's account, this author 

 attributes most of the disturbances above described to deficiency 

 of the anterior lobe; indeed the only changes, which he 

 definitely attributes to damage to the posterior lobe, are the 

 effects upon carbohydrate tolerance and upon the secretion by 

 the kidney. He does not state definitely whether these changes 

 are due to loss of the nervous portion proper, or to that reflec- 

 tion of the pars intermedia which passes over the nervous 

 portion. 



Hanselmann and Horsley have failed to confirm the results 

 of Gushing and his colleagues. In their experiments there was 

 a very high death-rate from shock, haemorrhage, and infection ; 

 but in the animals which survived, there were no characteristic 

 symptoms like those described by Gushing. Hanselmann and 

 Horsley further state that they observed a parallel death-rate 

 in animals, in whom incomplete extirpation had been carried 

 out. It is clear that the results of this series of experiments are 

 quite different from those obtained by Paulesco and Gushing. 



Aschner has opposed the view that the pituitary body is - 

 essential to life. He operates through the roof of the mouth. 

 In adult animals, according to Aschner, there are no serious 

 symptoms after the complete operation, although there are 

 slight metabolic changes. In young animals, on the contrary, 



