Abstract
Rogoff and Stewart, 1 Baumann and Kurland, 2 Britton and Silvette, 3 Swingle, Pfiffner, Vars, Botts, and Parkins, 4 and Harrop, Weinstein, Soffer, and Trescher, 5 have shown that adrenalectomy in animals produces a marked increase in blood concentration. So great is the dehydration that a false erythemia is seen, the red blood cell count in the blood showing an increase of from 50 to 100%. 6 Extensive changes are also encountered in the leucocytes in the blood as shown by Zwemer and Lyons. 7 Adrenalectomy in their animals resulted in a decrease in the total number of leucocytes in the blood of which the polymorphonuclear neutrophiles were markedly diminished, while the lymphocytes were slightly increased in number. Corey and Britton, 6 studying this problem more intensively, reported a concomitant decrease of about 50% in the white blood cell count in cats following adrenalectomy, with a blood picture resembling agranulocytic angina. The administration of cortico-adrenal extract to their adrenalectomized animals with a granulocytopenic blood picture, brought about a complete restoration of normal cell values in the blood. Wenner and Cone, 8 using extracts of the adrenal cortex in human pyogenic infections, were unable to observe any effect on the white blood cell counts or Schilling indices; the blood picture in their patients improved with the general improvement in the condition of the patients.
The purpose of this investigation was to ascertain the effect of the administration of cortico-adrenal extract, prepared according to the method of Swingle and Pfiffner, upon the white blood cell count and the differential leucocyte count in normal rabbits. The normal white blood cell counts and differential counts in the rabbits were determined by studying the blood during 3 days prior to the injections of the extracts.
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