THE INTERNAL SECRETION OF THE PANCREAS 417 



marked, rise in the quotient D :N in dogs without pancreas after 

 feeding them with fats, and this result was intensified by the 

 injection of adrenalin. 



With regard to the different carbohydrates contained in the 

 nutriment, Minkowski discovered that by far the greater number 

 (starch, grape-sugar, milk-sugar, cane-sugar) are excreted, 

 almost without residue, in the form of glucose. Levulose is the 

 only carbohydrate of which a large proportion is used up in the 

 organism. After the administration of levulose, a considerable 

 deposition of glycogen takes place in the liver and in the muscles. 



These findings of Minkowski's were confirmed by Sand- 

 meyer and, more recently, by Pfliiger. According to Eppinger 

 and Falta, the pathological decomposition of albumin observed 

 in dogs without pancreas is reduced practically to the normal by 

 the administration of levulose ; and it seems evident from this 

 that a portion of the levulose is really consumed. 



Of the other factors which contribute to the intensity of the 

 glycosuria, the most important is the surrounding temperature. 

 According to Liithje, the quotient D :N is very high when the 

 surrounding temperature is low, and very low when the surround- 

 ing temperature is high. Minkowski and Allard, Falta, Mohr 

 were unable to confirm this relationship between the amount of 

 the glycosuria and the surrounding temperature. 



The intensity of the glycosuria is influenced, moreover, by 

 the temperature of the body. The increased combustion and the 

 increased decomposition of albumin by which a heightened tem- 

 perature, especially fever temperature, is accompanied, may pro- 

 duce an intensified glycosuria. But, as a general rule, the be- 

 ginning of infective peritonitis and general sepsis in animals 

 after operation, is accompanied by a marked diminution or even 

 complete disappearance of the glycosuria. If experimental toxic 

 nephritis is induced (with cantharidin or chromic salts) in dogs 

 without pancreas, the condition will be accompanied by a con- 

 siderable decrease in the amount of sugar excreted in the urine 

 (Biedl). It is known that in spite of the fact that consider- 

 able hyperglycagmia is present, dogs with pancreatic diabetes 

 cease at the preterminal stage to excrete sugar (Falta, Grote and 

 Stahelin). Similar findings in the clinical condition (reduction 

 in the sugar excretion with hyperglycasmia, in nephritis with 

 fever) are explained by v. Noorden as the result of the increased 

 impermeability of the renal filter to sugar; and this assumption 

 is accepted by L. Pollak in explanation of the reduction in the 

 glycosuria after repeated injection of adrenalin. 



The effect which muscular exertion has upon the sugar 

 excretion in animals with pancreatic diabetes is at present insuffi- 

 ciently investigated. Heinsheimer observed that glycosuria sub- 

 maximal, it is true was favourably influenced by extreme mus- 

 cular exertion ; while Falta, Eppinger and Rudinger's dogs, 



27 



