210 AN AMERICAN TEXT-BOOK OF PHYSIOLOGY. 



nation with proteid bodies, from which it may be separated by digestion with 

 gastric juice or by boiling with acids. Most of the substance is combined with 

 an albuminous proteid to which they give the name thyroiodalbumin, while 

 a smaller part is united with a globulin-like proteid. In this paper still more 

 favorable reports of the beneficial action of this substance are reported, and 

 there can be but little doubt that the authors have succeeded in isolating the 

 really effective substance of thyroid extracts. A future paper upon the chemi- 

 cal nature of thyroiodin is promised. Frankel has also isolated a basic body 

 thyreo-antitoxin to which he gives the formula C 6 H U N 3 O 5 , which also 

 shows to some extent the beneficial effect of the thyroid extracts. Drechsel 1 

 has succeeded in isolating two crystalline basic bodies one of which is apparently 

 identical with that described by Fraukel. Both of these bodies are said to have 

 a beneficial influence when administered to thyroidectomized animals. Drechsel 

 suggests that there may be three separate substances formed in the thyroid 

 which are of value to the body, and that corresponding to these the thyroids 

 may exert a threefold effect upon body-metabolism. Gourlay states that he 

 has succeeded in proving the presence of a uucleo-albumin in the thyroids, and 

 showing by microchemical reactions that this substance is present in the 

 colloid secretion. 



Adrenal Bodies. The adrenal bodies or, as they are frequently called 

 in human anatomy, the suprarenal capsules belong to the group of ductless 

 glands. Their histology as well as their physiology is incompletely known. 

 It was shown first by Brown-Se"quard (1856) that removal of these bodies is 

 followed rapidly by death. This result has been confirmed by many experi- 

 menters, and so far as the observations go the effect of complete removal is 

 the same in all animals. The fatal effect is more rapid than in the case of 

 removal of the thyroids, death following the operation usually in two to three 

 days, or, according to some accounts, within a few hours. The symptoms pre- 

 ceding death are great prostration and muscular weakness, and marked dimi- 

 nution in vascular tone. These symptoms are said to resemble those occurring 

 in Addison's disease in man, a disease which clinical evidence has shown to be 

 associated with pathological lesions in the suprarenal capsules. It has been 

 expected, therefore, that the results obtained for thyroid treatment of myx- 

 red ema might be repeated in cases of Addison's disease by the use of adrenal 

 extracts. These expectations seem to have been realized in part, but complete 

 and satisfactory reports are yet lacking. The physiology of the adrenals has 

 usually been explained upon the auto-toxication theory. The death that comes 

 after their removal has been accounted for upon the supposition that during 

 life they remove or destroy a toxic substance produced elsewhere in the body, 

 possibly in the muscular system. Oliver 2 and Schaefer, however, have recently 

 given reasons for believing that this organ forms a peculiar substance which 

 has a very definite physiological action especially upon the muscular system. 

 They find that aqueous extracts of the medulla of the gland when injected into 



1 Centralblatt fur Physiologic, 1896, Bd. ix., No. 24. 



2 Journal of Physiology, 1895, vol. xviii. p. 230. 



