Survival of Two Depancreatized Dogs Treated with Insulin. ∗

Abstract

Soon after the discovery of insulin, attempts were made to maintain completely depancreatized dogs with insulin. Macleod 1 , 2 , 3 found that dogs receiving insulin and a diet of meat and sucrose survived for 8 months, whereas the addition of raw pancreas to their diets permitted the survival of 2 completely depancreatized dogs for about 4 years. Although the diets employed were deficient, Macleod concluded that raw pancreas was essential for the survival of the depancreatized dogs for periods longer than 8 months. More recently Hershey 4 reported that lecithin was of value in this connection. Hershey and Soskin 5 state that the ingestion of lecithin supplements enables depancreatized dogs to live indefinitely and that it cures the hepatic insufficiency that appears from 6 weeks to 11 months after pancreatectomy. However, the longest period of survival reported by these workers was 1 year and 3 months. Later, Best and Hershey 6 and Best, Ferguson and Hershey 7 found that the essential factor in lecithin was choline. It should be noted that the longest period of survival of a depancreatized dog reported in the latter publications was somewhat more than 2.5 years.

The present report deals only with the period of survival of the depancreatized dog. Following complete pancreatectomy, 2 dogs were injected twice daily with insulin and fed a diet containing the nutritional requirements known to be essential for the normal dog. They received twice daily a mixture consisting of lean meat, sucrose and bone ash in amounts previously specified. 8 In addition, vitamin supplements were added twice a week, A and D in the form of cod liver oil, B as a concentrate obtained from rice polishings. On such treatment 2 depancreatized dogs have survived for well over 4 years and at present are alive. A description of these dogs follows:

Dog DA—female; completely depancreatized March 11, 1931.