On the Experimental Morphology of the Adrenal Cortex

This small monograph was issued presumably in response to the present interest in the adrenal cortex but would have appeared more appropriately as an experimental study in one of the usual journals. The authors have studied the effects of variations in the protein and salt content of the diet on the size and appearance of the adrenal in 10 rats which had been subjected to unilateral nephrectomy and which were given injections of crude lyophilized pituitary tissue, crude saline extracts of fresh beef pituitary glands, pituitary adrenocorticotropic hormone, methyltestosterone, sodium thyroxinate and desoxycorticosterone acetate. The senior author of the monograph has attracted attention by his "general adaptation syndrome," according to which the adrenal cortex is involved in many diseases (rheumatism and hypertension, for example) which he considers to be a result of the stresses of modern life. The simplicity with which this theory explains the phenomena of disease has attracted