Abstract
The study of the effects of urine collected from a considerable number of normal women in the menopause and after castration has led us to regard the presence of lutein tissue in the ovaries of normal test rats as a common finding. The 24-hour specimens from such women were precipitated by alcohol, extracted with water and centrifuged. One-third of the powder thus obtained from each case was injected over a period of 3 days into a group of three 24 to 25 day old rats. (The remaining two-thirds was combined with synergist or pregnancy prolan in further tests for the active components of menopause urine, as will be seen in the following communication.) Autopsy was performed 96 hours after onset of injection. The urine of some of the patients was examined repeatedly; of the 20 women examined, the urine of 14 stimulated corpora on at least one occasion. Of a total of 88 tests, 20 showed corpus production.
We have, furthermore, been surprised to encounter ovarian weights of from 70 to 140 mg. in cases in which corpora lutea were produced. There are many corpora in such ovaries—not the small crop characterizing pregnancy prolan. The histological picture of many of these corpora resembled that of the earliest stages of normal corpora just after shedding of the egg, and this fact together with the presence of distended oviducts led us to section the latter, where ova were encountered. In one case 83 eggs were found in 2 oviducts.
Smith and Engle 1 first reported experimentally induced superovulation in normal immature mice and rats after the implantation of rat anterior pituitary tissue. The phenomenon was again encountered by Leonard and Smith 2 on administering to hypophysectomized rats a mixture of the gonadotropic substances found in menopause and pregnancy urines respectively.
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