Abstract
Many authors have tried to prove that the pancreatico-duodenal vein is the carrier of the pancreatic hormone but nobody was able to accomplish this for two reasons: (1) Blood was taken in artificial conditions of acute experiment; 1 (2) for detection of insulin no direct biological, but only unspecific and indecisive indirect tests 2 were used.
We obtained the blood from the pancreatico-duodenal vein of healthy dogs under quite normal conditions by means of angiostomical tubes. 3 For detection of insulin we used the most sensitive biological test of Brugsch and Horsters 4 —hypoglycemic reaction of blood accompanied sometimes by paresis or paralysis of the legs of fasting white mice after intraperitoneal injection of the analyzed blood.
In our experiments the blood drawn from the pancreatico-duodenal vein of fasting angiostomised dogs before and after intravenous injection of 25-50 gr. of glucose was introduced in amounts from 0.2 to 1.0 cc. into the peritoneal cavity of white mice. Two to 3 hours after injection the mice were killed by decapitation and their blood sugar evaluated by the method of Hagedorn-Jensen. The results show in a definite way that in a fasting dog insulin cannot be detected in the pancreatico-duodenal blood even with very sensitive biological tests. After intravenous injections of glucose considerable amounts of insulin are present in the blood of the pancreatico-duodenal vein. There was in literature and uncertainty whether insulin is secreted in an active or in an inactive state; our experiments prove that it is secreted into the bloodstream in an active state.
Contrary to the insulin secretion of the pancreas the epinephrine secretion by the suprarenal glands seems to proceed continual in a fasting dog. We have successfully applied the Brugsch insulin test in our experiments for the detection of epinephrine in blood, hypoglycemic reaction resulting instead of the hypoglycemic one.
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