Abstract
H. A. Stewart 1 first called attention to what he considered to be an unusual prolongation of the life-span of the pregnant cat following adrenal removal. He states “In most instances the pregnant and lactating animals survived the extirpation of the adrenal glands longer than normal, non-pregnant or male animals.” The average prolongation in good cases of non-injected pregnant cats was 7.2 days, whereas the average prolongation of male and non-pregnant females was only 2.2 days.
Stewart and Rogoff, 2 working with dogs, cited cases of pregnant bitches which lived for considerable periods following bilateral adrenal removal. Several animals survived throughout the gestation period, and one animal gave birth to a litter of pups. These authors do not attempt to explain the reason for such prolongation of the survival period of adrenalectomized dogs, but merely suggest that possibly the corpus luteum may be involved.
In an earlier series of experiments on bilaterally adrenalectomized cats,3 the writer observed that pregnant individuals did not survive any longer than male or non-pregnant animals. The observations at that time were limited to only a few cases, hence no significance was attached to them. During the fall and spring of 1927, however, the problem of the survival period of double-operated, pregnant cats was carefully studied. Sixteen female animals were operated under anesthesia and their survival periods were checked against those of 6 operated male and non-pregnant female animals which served as controls.
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