306 



Society Proceedings (122). 



139 (1886) 



The so-called permanent polyuria of experimental 

 diabetes insipidus. 



By E. B. TOWNE. 



[From the Laboratory oj Surgical Pathology, Stanford University 

 Medical School , San Francisco, Cal.] 



Several types of operative damage to the pituitary body or to 

 the tuber cinereum of the dog cause a polyuria which lasts about 

 three days. A few observations of more enduring polyuria have 

 been reported. In Crowe, Cushing and Homans's 1 Obs. 34 (partial 

 removal of the anterior lobe and separation of the stalk) the 

 polyuria was still present when the animal was killed six months 

 after operation. Camus and Roussy's 2 dog "Moustachu" was 

 putting out large amounts of urine when killed in the seventh 

 month. Autopsy showed that the tuber cinereum had been 

 punctured and that the stalk had been divided. Matthews 3 

 twice produced polyuria by introducing through the sphenoid 

 bone a piece of gutta-percha tissue which impinged on the pos- 

 terior lobe, stalk and tuber cinereum. One experiment lasted 

 nine weeks before the animal was killed. Camus and Roussy 4 

 reported two dogs with "permanent diabetes insipidus" which 

 were still alive ten and twelve months after the production of a 

 lesion intended to involve only the tuber cinereum. Bailey and 

 Bremer, 5 who produced small lesions of the tuber cinereum, said 

 that in three dogs "the polyuria was permanent." The experi- 

 ments lasted ten days, six weeks and four months respectively; 

 in the third animal the posterior lobe had been detached from the 

 infundibulum. 



The matter at issue is whether the polyuria is due to suppres- 

 sion of the secretion of the pars intermedia, or to injury of a 

 hypothetical nerve center in the tuber cinereum, or to some other 



1 Crowe, Cushing and Homans, Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bull., 1910, xxi, 127. 

 1 Camus and Roussy, Presse mid., 1914, xxii, 517. 

 1 Matthews, Arch. Int.- Med., 1915, xv, 451. 



* Camus and Roussy, Comptes Rendus de la Soc. de Biol, 1920, Ixxxiii, 764; ibid., 

 901; ibid., 1578. 



1 Bailey and Bremer, Arch. Int. Med., 1921. xxviii, 773. 



