Abstract
In the present studies, attempts are made to determine what effects the removal of the hormones of the pituitary and of those glands under its control has upon the ability of an animal to exert reparative epithelial growth or reparative fibroplasia.
Rats of the Wisconsin strain, obtained from the local Anheuser-Busch laboratories were used. At the age of approximately 14 weeks they were hypophysectomized, and then used 7-10 weeks later, at which time they showed a 10-20% loss of weight, loose thin skin, emaciation, appearance of fine silky hair, atrophy of testes, and atrophy of the adrenals, gonads and thyroid at postmortem.
In the first part of the experiment an area of 2 sq cm was resected from the right flank of 19 normal and 18 hypophysectomized animals under nembutal-ether anesthesia. This area was measured on the first and every other subsequent day by tracing on cellophane and measuring with a planimeter. The reduction in wound areas for the hypophysectomized animals is identical with that of the controls.
The wounds in the normals were slightly larger than those in the experimentals for the first 4 days. This is probably due to a greater amount of elastic tissue and less stretching of the normal skin before the area was demarcated, for in the normals the skin is more tightly bound down by the subcutaneous tissue that is strikingly lacking in the hypophysectomized animals.
In the second part, we attempted to test the rate of fibroplasia. Harvey had shown that fibroplasia is proportional to the return of strength in wounds of the stomach. Using his technic, incisions 1 cm long were made in the stomachs of 29 normals and 18 hypophysectomized rats.
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