338 
PHYSIOLOGY: KLEINER AND MELTZER 
SO constant as it has been assumed to be, but that it is affected by a 
number of conditions, and that at least some of these may not affect 
length and spread in the same manner. Attention has been called to 
these facts because they have not been given adequate consideration in 
genetic research on the behavior of flower size in Nicotiana and other 
genera. 
The experiments reported upon above have, in part, been made possi- 
ble by an allotment from that portion of the Adams Fund of the United 
States Department of Agriculture granted to the Agricultural Experi- 
ment Station of the University of California. 
1 Setchell, Studies in Nicotiana, I, Univ. of Cal. Pub. Bot., 5, 8, 1912. 
2 Ibid., p. 29. 
RETENTION IN THE CIRCULATION OF DEXTROSE IN NOR- 
MAL AND DEPANCREATIZED ANIMALS, AND THE EFFECT 
OF AN INTRAVENOUS INJECTION OF AN EMULSION OF 
PANCREAS UPON THIS RETENTION 
By I. S. Kleiner and S. J. Meltzer 
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSIOLOGY AND PHARMACOLOGY. ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE 
FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH 
Read before the Academy, April 19, 1915. Received, April 29, 1915 
The content of dextrose in the circulating blood of normal animals 
is almost constant, it amounts to about 0.1 percent. The carbohy- 
drates of the foodstuffs form the main source of dextrose in the body. 
On their way from the digestive tract the carbohydrates are transformed 
into various forms of saccharides; but all are finally converted largely 
into glycogen, which is stored up mostly in the liver. The blood obtains 
its supply of dextrose from the glycogen of the liver, and distributes 
it among the tissues of the body according to their demand for it. In 
the normal animal none of the dextrose escapes through the kidneys. 
Accordingly the constancy of the amount of dextrose in the blood is 
regulated by a mechanism which controls either of the two factors; 
the supply of or the demand for it. 
In diabetes the dextrose content of the blood is higher than normal, 
is variable in amount, and, when it is sufficiently high, dextrose escapes 
through the kidneys. The cause of the increase of the blood dextrose, 
or hyperglycaemia, may be found either in a decrease in the demand of 
the tissues for dextrose, that is, the tissues burn dextrose less readily 
than in normal conditions; or in an increase in the supply, that is, the 
liver supplies the blood with more dextrose than in normal conditions. 
