PHYSIOLOGY: KLEINER AND MELTZER 
369 
increase in number of erythrocytes in these animals. If polycythaemia 
is due to some direct nervous influence it might be expected that in 
these animals in which the nervous condition is intact, nervous stimuli 
as fright, would cause an increase in number of red corpuscles. 
As the direct stimulation of the nerves to the liver causes no increase 
in number of erythrocytes, and as in animals in which epinephrin causes 
no polycythaemia nervous stimuH also cause no increase in number of 
red corpuscles, it appears probable that the polycythaemia following 
the stimulation of certain nerves is not due to a direct nervous influence, 
but to a reflex stimulation of the adrenals and a secondary action of 
epinephrin on the liver. 
iLamson, P. D., These Proceedings, 1, 521-525 (1915). 
2Lamson, P. D., /. Pharm. Exp. Therap., 7, 169-224 (1915). 
2 The terms red count, number of red corpuscles, etc., will be used occasionally for the 
sake of brevity, instead of the more exact term, number of erythrocytes per unit volume of 
blood. 
<Lamson, P. D., and Keith, N. M., /. Pharm. Exp. Therap., 8, 247-251 (1916). 
^Lamson, P. D., /. Pharm. Exp. Therap., 8, 167-173 (1916). 
^Mautner, H., and Pick, E. P., Miinchener med. Wochenschr., Nr. 34, S. 1141, 1915. 
THE INFLUENCE OF MORPHIN UPON THE ELIMINATION OF 
INTRAVENOUSLY INJECTED DEXTROSE IN DOGS 
By I. S. Kleiner and S. J. Meltzer 
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSIOLOGY AND PHARMACOLOGY, 
ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH 
Read before the Academy, April 17,1916. Received June 9,1916 
The sugar content of the circulating blood is practically constant. 
This constancy is upheld by some stable mechanism which controls the 
supply of sugar to and its elimination from the circulation. Some time 
ago^ we communicated the instructive fact that after the intravenous 
injection of four grams of sugar per kilo of body weight the sugar content 
of the blood returns to nearly normal again in about 90 minutes. These 
animals had ether anesthesia during the operation and afterwards 
a subcutaneous injection of morphin. The question presented itself, 
whether the anesthetics which were used influenced the rate of elimi- 
nation of the added sugar through the kidneys and the blood capillaries, 
or, to express it in the terms of the hypothesis which was uppermost in 
our minds, whether the anesthetics affected the physiological permeability 
of the endothelia and epithelia which are concerned in the process of 
elimination. 
We tested first the action of morphin alone. Two series of experi- 
