SECRET JOK. 409 



are granules more or less developed. They can be colored by reagents. 

 They secrete a colloid substance which enters the blood through the 

 lymphatics. When all the parathyroids are removed there is partial 

 paralysis, especially of the extensors, trembling in all the muscles 

 followed by a series of convulsive attacks with loss of appetite ; there 

 is often vomiting, dyspnoea, replaced during the convulsive attacks by 

 polypncea. The temperature rises during these convulsive attacks. 

 This tetany begins in 24 to 48 hours after the operation in the dog and 

 rabbit. The dog dies generally from the second to the fifth day, and, 

 as a rule, in convulsions. The seat of the tetany is central. Kobert 

 Quest analyzed the brains of three infants dead of tetany and found 

 the amount of calcium to be small, and the proportion between the 

 amount of sodium and calcium to be changed. Oddo and Sarles found 

 the urine in tetany in infants to have an exaggerated amount of phos- 

 phate of calcium. 



Netter cured three cases of tetany in infants with chloride of 

 calcium by the mouth. 



W. G. McCallum and Yoegtlin confirmed the results of Quest as to 

 the lessened amount of calcium in the brain. They also found, as 

 Oddo and Sarles did, an increased urinary excretion of calcium lately 

 denied. McCallum and Voegtlin also found the calcium to be dimin- 

 ished in the blood and muscles to one-half the usual amount. 



McCallum and Voegtlin found after parathyroidectomy, an 

 increase in the urine of nitrogen, ammonia, and an increased ammonia 

 ratio in the urine. They also found an increased amount of ammonia 

 in the blood. 



They also arrested tetany for 24 hours in dogs by seven grains of 

 calcium by the vein. Halsted has cured tetany in man, due to 

 operations on the thyroid and parathyroids by calcium. Injections of 

 the parathyroid extract have been shown by Beebe to cause the symp- 

 toms of tetany to vanish for a time, but death finally ensued. Ott and 

 Scott have found ten to twenty grains of pituitary extract, sub- 

 cutaneously stops tetany in cats, and causes the shambling, tremb- 

 ling gait to be replaced by a normal one. McCallum has shown that 

 transfusion of blood from a dog suffering from tetany did not cause 

 the other dog to have it. Removal of the parathyroids produces 

 tetany by a toxic agent in the blood, not by a deficiency of calcium. 

 The parathyroid extract usually does not alter the pulse-rate to any 

 extent. For the moment it usually slightly increases arterial tension 

 and then decreases it. It greatly augments the urinary secretion by an 

 action on the renal epithelium. It also augments uterine contraction 





