Abstract
Loeb, 1 and later Loeb and Bassett, 2 and Silberberg 3 studied the effects of various anterior pituitary preparations upon the thyroid gland; the former investigators also correlated the changes in the thyroid thus produced with those that take place in the sex organs under the influence of anterior pituitary preparations. 4 It was found that various preparations have different effects. Intraperitoneal injections of acid and alkaline extracts of fresh cattle glands cause a very marked hypertrophy of the thyroid gland in a very short time; while on the contrary the feeding of Armour's anterior pituitary tablets produced structural changes indicating a decreased activity of the gland. Loeb and Siebert 5 found that the oral administration of anterior pituitary substance prepared in our laboratory does not produce the same effects as the Armour preparation. According to Loeb and Bassett 2 repeated subcutaneous inoculations of anterior pituitary gland tissue obtained from freshly killed guinea pigs caused only very slight hypertrophic changes, if any, in the thyroid gland, while inoculations with somewhat larger quantities of fresh cattle gland produced definite hypertrophic changes.
In view of the effect of these preparations on the thyroid gland in guinea pigs and considering the significance of the thyroid gland in basal metabolism, we thought it of importance to study the action of these various anterior pituitary preparations on the basal metabolism in guinea pigs.
Our principal findings are as follows:
1. Daily subcutaneous injections of either acid or alkaline extracts of anterior pituitary glands of cattle cause a very marked and rapid rise in basal metabolism, which reaches a maximum of approximately +60% within the first 10 days. Then the basal metabolism gradually returns to a level approximately 15% higher than the average found in normal guinea pigs.
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