The Effects of Pancreatectomy in Ducks.

Abstract

The observations of various investigators in the field of experimental avian diabetes mellitus, while not agreeing in all respects are, nevertheless, unanimous in that the removal of the pancreas from chickens and ducks results in a condition which is essentially different from a von Mehring Minkowski 1 diabetes in the dog. Weintraud 2 reported glycosuria in only a small proportion of his depancreatised ducks. Kausch 3 stated that the blood sugar changes in a large series of depancreatised ducks varied from no increase at all in a few birds to an extreme hyperglycemia in the majority, but that there was no constant relation between the incidence of hyperglycemia and glycosuria in his series, and that the livers of these ducks were practically glycogen free even after heavy feeding. In a similar study on chickens, Giaja 4 reported that the removal of the pancreas resulted in no glycosuria and only a slight increase in the sugar content of the blood.

More recently, Koppányi, Ivy, Tatum and Jung 5 and Redenbaugh, Ivy and Koppányi 6 in studies on depancreatised chickens observed that while the resulting hyperglycemia was temporary it was always accompanied by glycosuria. Extracts from the livers of these chickens gave a positive iodine test for glycogen. They observed also that the pancreas of normal chickens yields approximately as much insulin as the pancreas of calves is reported to, and that the liver and kidneys of normal chickens contain relatively large amounts of insulin. In view of the atypical diabetes which results in depancreatised fowls, these workers 5 offered two possible explanations : either, that after the removal of the pancreas from fowls some other organ, probably the liver, may develop the ability to regulate carbohydrate metabolism in some unknown manner, or, that insulin production is not solely specific for the pancreas though the pancreas would appear to be the main producer of this hormone.