74 



Scientific Proceedings (28). 



the sugar has helped in the utilization of such proteins for the 

 maintenance of the foetal growth. The latter is, I think, the better 

 interpretation. It would seem that the sugar has diverted sub- 

 stances which would otherwise have been eliminated as urea or 

 ammonia, and it seems probable that this has been accomplished by- 

 synthesis in the embryonic tissues. The very high creatin nitro- 

 gen eliminated in the pregnant condition may be taken as an indi- 

 cation that the muscles are the chief source of these proteins but 

 that the creatin itself is not (all) available for the embryonic growth. 

 The fact that the dog was apparently weakened much more by 

 this fasting period than by the period of similar duration when not 

 pregnant would lend support to this view. The conditions would 

 be entirely analogous, therefore, to Miescher's classical case of the 

 fasting Rhine salmon where it has been shown that the muscular 

 tissues are levied upon for the growth of the germ cells just previ- 

 ous to the spawning season. At all events it is clear from the 

 above experiment that the carbohydrate has caused a much greater 

 retention of the proteins in the pregnant condition. 



Perfectly concordant results were obtained on a second dog in 

 the sixth week of pregnancy where the reduction in the nitrogen 

 output by a proportional amount of carbohydrate was 38 per cent. 



41 (297) 



The transplantation of parathyroid glands in dogs. 

 By W. S. HALSTED. 



\From the Hunterian Laboratory , Johns Hopkins University^ 



Our experiments, begun in the winter of 1906-7, have with 

 interruptions been continued to date. In the course of the work 

 many questions have arisen which still require solution and we 

 find ourselves on the threshold of the investigation. 



The first attempt of which I know to transplant these organs 

 was made by us in December, 1906. Two parathyroid glands, 

 one from the right and one from the left side of the dog's neck, 

 were successfully implanted into the thyroid lobes from which they 

 were removed. 1 



1 Halsted : American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 1907, cxxxiv, No. I 



(Ny). 



