The Function of the Carotid Gland 1. The Action of Extracts of a Carotid Gland Tumor in Man

The carotid gland is still generally regarded as one of the paraganglia comparable to the glooms coceygeurn and the aortic paraganglia of Zuckerkandl. “The carotid body is merely an outlying portion of the suprarenal system proper and might well be treated in connection with the accessory suprarenals and paraganglia” (Cowdry, 1922). This represents the usual text-book opinion of physiologists and pathologists alike. A review of the literature entirely fails to support such dogmatism, and one can only conclude that this is another misrepresentation of evidence which has been relayed from text-book to text-book. The excellent review of the literature up to 1900 by Kohn (1900) is generally quoted, and yet he states: “Seit vielen Jahren gegenstand lebhaften Interesse wurdc sie histologisch and embryologisch vielfach untersucht ohne dass eine einheitliche Auffassung erzielt worden wäre.” In the past 30 years evidence has been slowly accumulating that the Glomus Caroticum, or Carotid Gland, as we would prefer to call it, is independent of the suprarenal system.