Adrenal Insufficiency

When both adrenals are removed from most of the ordinary laboratory animals, e. g., dog, eat or guinea pig, death speedily ensues. The fatal result is not evaded, although it may be somewhat delayed, if the operation is performed in two stages and a considerable interval allowed to elapse between the removal of the two glands. The literature is enormous and is extensively cited in the monographs of Biedl (1) and Swale Vincent (2). We shall only refer to a few of the papers, especially as in the more rnodern work there is a general agreement in the results which particularly concern us. Abelous and Langlois (3) found that hibernating frogs might live as long as 12 or 13 days after complete ablation of the adrenals, whereas summer frogs on the average never survived more than 48 hours. If the temperature of the room was kept about 22° C the period of survival of winter frogs was much diminished.