Studies on the conditions of activity in endocrine glands. I, The electrical response as an index of glandular action / by W.B. Cannon and McKeen Cattell.

  • Walter Bradford Cannon
Date:
[1916?]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Studies on the conditions of activity in endocrine glands. I, The electrical response as an index of glandular action / by W.B. Cannon and McKeen Cattell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    July, 1916 STUDIES ON THE CONDITIONS OF ACTIVITY IN ENDOCRINE GLANDS I, Tor ELectTRicaL RESPONSE AS AN INDEX OF GLANDULAR AcTIoNn! W. B. CANNON ann McKEEN CATTELL From the Laboratory of Physiology in the Harvard Medical School Received for publication April 27, 1916 In the extensive literature of electrophysiology much has been re- ported concerning observed alterations of electrical potential in nerves and muscles under various circumstances, but relatively little attention has been given to the electromotive phenomena of glands. The studies of du Bois-Reymond, Rosenthal, Hermann, Luchsinger, Engelmann, and Biedermann on the cutaneous and other surface glands in the frog and fish and in the cat, dog, pig and goat indicated, more than thirty years ago, the possibilities of interesting research in this field, To some ex- tent these possibilities have been realized in studies of the psychogal- vanic reflex. The use of electrical methods for examining the glands of the interior of the body, however, has been almost wholly neglected. In 1885, Bayliss and Bradford (1) reported the results of an investigation of the electrical changes attending secretion by the salivary glands in the dog and cat, and a few years later Bradford (2) contributed further information on the same subject. In 1894, Bohlan (8) published a paper on the electrical effects produced by the gastric mucosa when stimulated through the vagus nerves. Any other papers dealing with electromo- tive phenomena of the glands that lie distant from the body surface, we have been unable to find. An interest in the activities of the ductless glands, especially those without a secretion recognizable by present methods, led us to consider available for detecting slight electrical differences, with the hope that thereby further knowledge of their functions might be secured. 1 The main results of this and the two following papers were presented before the American Physiological Society, December 29, 1915. See Proceedings, this journal, 1916, xl, p. 1438. 39
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