Abstract
Loeb, Bassett and Friedman, Siebert and Smith, and Martin Silberberg 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 have shown that injections of acid extract of cattle anterior pituitary produce changes in the guinea pig which bear close resemblance to the changes found in man in cases of Graves disease, as far as the structure of the thyroid gland, the behavior of the colloid, the changes in weight, as well as in the basal metabolism and the effect of KI in this condition are concerned. Lunde, Closs and Wülfert 6 have shown that the acetone insoluble or globulin-iodine fraction of the thyroid gland of toxic goiters is both absolutely and relatively decreased, while the total blood iodine concentration has been found by Lunde, Closs, Pedersen, 7 , 8 and others 9 , 10 to be increased. There is reason for assuming that an increased elimination of the thyroid hormone from the gland into the circulation takes place in Graves disease. We wished to determine whether similar changes in the iodine distribution occur in the guinea pig under the influence of acid extracts of cattle anterior pituitary.
We carried out 2 experiments. In the first, 8 guinea pigs, ranging in weight between 170 and 210 gm., were injected 5 times over a period of 6 days with 1 cc. of the acid extract. The pooled thyroid glands and 8 blood specimens of these animals were analyzed for their content in alcohol soluble and insoluble iodine. The thyroids and blood from 12 control guinea pigs of a similar weight were analyzed in the same way. In a second experiment, corresponding analyses of the blood and the thyroid glands from 12 injected and 12 control guinea pigs were carried out. In this case 6 samples of blood were analyzed separately from controls and 6 samples from the injected animals.
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