OPERATIONS ON THE PITUITARY 67 



the anterior lobe is easily accomplished, and the results 

 following this procedure should be reliable ; total re- 

 moval of the anterior lobe leaving posterior lobe intact 

 is almost impossible ; but total removal of the posterior 

 lobe can be performed without very great difficulty, and 

 separation of the stalk is easy. 



I have myself operated on 27 bitches, and have Author's 

 performed partial removals of the component parts of ex P enmonia 

 the pituitary, and complete removals of the whole 

 pituitary and of the pars posterior ; I have been able to 

 clamp and separate the stalk, and to put artificial pressure 

 on the pituitary by leaving a foreign body in the sella 

 turcica 1 . 



It is the effect of dystrophia adiposogenitalis, said to Dystrophia 

 be caused by partial removal of the anterior lobe, which S^2"s 

 is particularly interesting to our present study. It is to 

 be noted that Cushing 2 in his recent book on the Pituitary 

 Body, if I understand him correctly, puts forward views 

 diametrically opposed to the results obtained in the 

 experiments which were previously published by him. 

 In the later work he attributes the symptoms mentioned 

 to insufficiency of the posterior lobe. Thus the con- 

 fusion that has so long existed becomes " confusion 

 worse confounded " and, as already stated, can in my 

 opinion only be dispelled by considering the whole 

 pituitary as one organ. 



In my own experiments I was unable to produce the 

 syndrome dystropia adiposogenitalis by removal of large 

 or small portions either of the anterior or posterior lobe. 

 I found, however, that separating or clamping of the 

 stalk produced in bitches this interesting syndrome in a 

 greater or lesser degree : in one case the increase in 

 weight amounted to 66 per cent, of the original body 

 weight in 51 days (fig. 29, a & b) ; in another animal the 

 increase was 20 per cent, in 73 days. In these animals 

 there was a remarkable degree of genital and mammary 

 atrophy with general infantilism. 



1 Bell, W. Blair, Quart. Journ. Exper. Physiol., 1917, vol. xi, p. 77. 



2 Cushing, H., The Pituitary Body and Its Disorders, 1912. 



