948 INFLUENCE OF DUCTLESS GLANDS ON METABOLISM. 
We may assume, then, that the pituitary body furnishes to the 
blood an internal secretion, and that this internal secretion tends to 
increase the contraction of the heart and arteries, and perhaps influences 
the nutrition of some of the tissues, especially bone and the tissues of 
the nervous system. 1 
The Suprarenal Bodies. 
Effects of disease and ablation.— The immense importance of these 
glands in nutrition was indicated by Addison, 2 who, in 1855, pointed out 
that the symptoms of the disease now known by his name, the most 
prominent of which are extreme asthenia, and the appearance of bronze 
patches upon the skin and on some of the mucous membranes, are 
associated with pathological alterations of the suprarenal capsules. 
This observation was tested experimentally by Brown-Sequard, 3 who 
found (in 1856) that removal of the suprarenal bodies was rapidly and 
unfailingly fatal in all animals (usually within twelve hours). Removal 
of one capsule produces no obvious effect, but when the second is re- 
moved, even after a long interval of time, the usual symptoms caused by 
total ablation at once supervene. The symptoms following the removal 
are practically those of Addison's disease, although much more acute. 
There is extreme muscular weakness, and great loss of tone of the 
vascular system, with loss of appetite, and other signs of general pro- 
stration. Death appears to result from paralysis of the respiratory 
muscles. But the pigmentation which usually accompanies disease of 
the capsules was not noticed by Brown-Sequard, and he inferred that this 
absence of pigmentation was probably due to the fact that a fatal result 
appears so rapidly after the complete removal of the capsules in animals, 
that time is not afforded for the development of this symptom. This 
conjecture appears to have been confirmed by an experiment of 
Xothnagel, 4 who found pigmented patches to appear after crushing the 
capsules, and also by F. and S. Marino-Zucco, 5 who state that by inocu- 
lating the suprarenale of rabbits with pseudo-tubercle bacillus they 
have succeeded in obtaining, not only the slow development of the 
ordinary symptoms of suprarenal removal, but also an augmentation 
in the pigmentation of the skin and hair. Tizzoni also has obtained 
skin-pigmentation after complete and partial removal of the capsules in 
rabbits, which lived a certain time after the operation. 
It is needless to state that Brown-Sequard's results, following as 
they did upon Addison's observations, attracted much attention, and 
numerous investigators set to work to verify them. But many of these 6 
failed to confirm the results which were obtained by Brown-Sequard, 
probably by reason of the removal being incomplete, or of the existence 
1 The thromboses which Mairet and Bose (Arch, dc physiol. norm, et path., Paris, 1896, 
p. 600) obtained from intravenous injection of glycerin- and water-extracts of pituitary 
into rabbits, were doubtless caused by nucleo-proteids. Subcutaneous injection produced 
slight rise of temperature with lassitude and gastric troubles, but as it does not appear 
that the material used was aseptic, these observations are of little value. 
- "On the Constitutional and Local Effects of Disease of the Suprarenal Capsules," 
London, 1855. 
3 Cqgipt. rend. Acad, d sc, Paris, 1856, pp. 422 and 542 ; Arch. gin. de mid., Paris, 
1856 ; Journ. de la ■physiol. dc Vhomme, Paris, 1858, tome i. p. 160. 
4 Ztschr.f. Min. Med., Berlin, 1879, Bd. i. S. 77. 
5 Puforma rned., Roma, 1892, tome i. 
6 Philippeaux, Compt. rend. Acad. d. sc, Paris, 1856 ; Gratiolet, ibid.; G. Harley, Brit, 
and For. Med.-Chir. licv., London, 1858, vol. xxi. p. 204. 
