BIOLOGICAL studies with purified adrenocorticotropic hormone have revealed that the chronic administration of this anterior pituitary principle causes the following effect in immature male rats: a) hypertrophy of the adrenal cortex, b) atrophy of the thymus and lymph nodes (Simpson, Li, Reinhardt and Evans, 1943), c) the retardation of body growth (Evans, Simpson and Li, 1943), d) retarded development of testes and male accessory organs (unpublished) and e) decrease of thyroid weight and some hypoplasia (unpublished data). Such a widespread effect on the endocrine system warranted histological and cytological investigation of the pituitary of these animals.2 The male rat was chosen for this investigation in order to avoid the complications usually brought about by the well-known phenomenon of cyclic changes in the pituitary of a female. Both sexually immature (at the begnning of the experiments) and mature males were studied.
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Alexei A. Koneff (1944) studied this question.