Abstract
It is not clear whether the relation of hypophysis and hypothalamus to carbohydrate metabolism is due primarily to one or the other, or to an interaction between both. We wish to record the following progress report pertaining to the subject.
All operations were made under nembutal† by the subtemporal approach with excellent visibility and little or no hemorrhage.
Fasting Blood Sugars. In 45 normal dogs, the fasting blood sugars determined by a modified Folin-Wu method ranged from 75 to 139 mg. %, with only 2 cases below 80. We consider values of 70 and below abnormal. After complete hypophysectomy, abnormally lowr blood sugars were observed in 7 out of 11 cases, values of 34, 43, 59, 63, 69, and 70 being recorded. Removal of the anterior lobe alone in one specimen resulted in hypoglycemia (40). In each case, the low blood sugar was accompanied by symptoms typical of cachexia hypophysoprivea. These crises were spontaneous and varied in their onset from 1 day to 3 months postoperative. In 4 cases in which glucose was given, immediate recovery was effected; one animal still survives. In 2, symptoms-were reprecipitated by a short period of starvation. These results are in exact agreement with those reported by Houssay and Biasotti. 1 Two of the remaining dogs died the first day postoperative without low blood sugars, one, after several weeks and one is still living after 3 months.
Hypoglycemic crises similar to those following hypophysectomy were observed in 5 out of 13 dogs with bilateral transverse lesions at the chiasmal level of the hypothalamus (68, 68, 50, 65, 68). These occurred on the first and second days and were followed by death in 4 cases; the fifth recovered on administration of glucose and maintained a normal blood sugar until death on the fifth day.
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