248 



INTERNAL SECRETION 



refusing to stain after twelve or, at the outside, thirty hours. It 

 should be further borne in mind that all cells do not stain equally 

 intensely, and that their chromaffinity is by no means always 

 parallel to their adrenalin contents, as revealed by other methods. 

 In the experiments of Schur and Wiesel, in which prolonged 

 narcosis in rabbits was followed by reduction and total disappear- 

 ance of the chromaffinity of the suprarenal medulla, I found a dis- 

 crepancy between the chromaffinity of the suprarenal extract em- 

 ployed and its effect in raising blood-pressure. For instance, the 

 hypertensive action of one extract was of about normal intensity, but 

 the chromaffinity of the suprarenal from which it was derived was 

 very much reduced. Whether, in these cases, the slight chrome 

 reaction is due to insufficiency of the adrenalin contents, or to the 

 presence of non-chromophile pre-stages of adrenalin, is at present 

 undecided. Whatever the cause, however, findings such as these 

 show very clearly that Henle's chrome reaction can be employed 

 at best as a provisional quantitative test only for adrenalin. 



Battelli was the first to attempt to record in actual figures the 

 amount of adrenalin contained in the suprarenals. For this 

 purpose, he employed a colorimetric method of his own with 

 ferric chloride, but was able to obtain only approximate results. 

 Battelli and his pupil, S. Ornstein, measured the amount of 

 adrenalin in the suprarenals of man, rabbits, and guinea-pigs, by 

 estimating the increase in blood-pressure produced by the extracts 

 of those organs. The results of their experiments showed that 

 the adrenalin contents of both suprarenals are approximately the 

 same in the dog and the rabbit, but that in the guinea-pig the 

 amounts differ, the excess being in the right or left organ indiffer- 

 ently. They also proved that, in the case of the dog and the 

 rabbit, extirpation of one capsule did not lead, at any rate within 

 the next few days, to a change in the adrenalin contents of the 

 other. In the case of the dog, however, a reduction was occasion- 

 ally observed in the adrenalin contents of the capsule left in situ. 



Battelli 's tables show that i grm. of suprarenal substance 

 contains, upon an average, i mg., or slightly more, of adrenalin. 

 It was estimated that 18 grm. of suprarenal substance of cattle 

 contained a mean quantity of 4.3 grm. of medullary substance, 

 and .031 grm. of adrenalin ; that is to say, .75 per cent, of adrenalin 

 was present in the medullary substance. 



According to Battelli, the adrenalin contents of the suprarenals 

 of different animals, to every 1,000 kg. of body weight, are as 

 follows : 



grm. adrenalin per 1000 kilo. 



