Abstract
Of importance are answers to the question of (1) what happens to the female sex hormone after injection, (2) how is it excreted, (3) can the excretion be stimulated?
1. What happens to the female sex hormone after injection? Half hourly blood samples taken from isolated adult rabbits in whom 2000 M. U. of female sex hormone had been injected intravenously in one dose, showed that only 1 M. U. could be recovered from 4 cc. of serum during the first hour, and none thereafter. After subcutaneous injection, 5 cc. showed this reaction during the first hour. Twenty-four hours later the blood of a rabbit injected with 3000 M. U. and killed 24 hours later by bleeding, showed less than 1 M. U. in 40 cc. of blood, one-half of the total blood volume. From another rabbit given 3000 M. U. and killed 24 hours later, extracts made from the total skeletal musculature, the lungs, brain and liver were assayed. With the exception of the liver, the total extract of the organ proved negative. The extract corresponding to one-half the total liver contained but 1 M. U.
This series of experiments shows that large amounts of female sex hormone given intravenously or subcutaneously in the rabbit, rapidly disappear from the circulation and cannot be recovered from the internal organs 24 hours after injection. These results do not show whether the hormone is destroyed or so changed within the body fluids or tissues as to be no longer demonstrable by the Allen and Doisy reaction.
2. How is the female sex hormone excreted? Allen 1 found that female sex hormone was excreted almost quantitatively when injected into monkeys. We injected 2 African green monkeys, a male and female, each with 1500 M. U. of the hormone subcutaneously.
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