Adrenal cortical extracts and human urine contain a corticosteroid of great potency measured by its effect on sodium and potassium excretion and on the survival of adrenalectomized animals. Wintersteiner and Pfiffner (1936) found that very small doses of the “amorphous fractions” of adrenal cortical estract maintained life after adrenalectomy. Simpson and Tait (1953), Mattox, Mason, and Albert (1953), and Knauff, Nielson and Haines (1953) have prepared crystalline materials of very similar properties and of high activity on sodium and potassium excretion. The chemical structure of this mineralocorticoid has recently been described as the 11–18 hemiacetal of 18-aldehydo-corticosterone by Simpson, Tait, Wettstein, Neher, v. Euw, Schindler, and Reichstein (1954), who have suggested the definitive term, aldosterone. Grollman and Firor (1932) demonstrated that extracts of human urine prolonged the survival of adrenalectomized animals. The urine of edematous patients with lipemic nephrosis, heart failure, and hepatic cirrhosis contains increased quantities of a sodium-retaining corticoid,
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Axelrad et al. (1954) studied this question.