Selected researches in pathology / by Alex. Gunn Auld.

  • Auld, Alexander Gunn.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Selected researches in pathology / by Alex. Gunn Auld. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    107/172 (page 95)
    We are thus forced back to the conclusions formerly suggested, that the work is largely done in the medulla itself and that this work is of a twofold nature. Toxic bodies are reduced or destroyed, and fresh qualities are imparted to the blood through a specific secretion con- taining a chromogen. The alkaloid (active principle so- called) is very easily oxidised, and this seems to be effected before it passes out by the suprarenal vein. It seems likely indeed that all this is accomplished on the spot, and herein we find a clue to the failure of suprarenal treatment. In a gland like the thyroid, the specific secretion passes by lymphatics into the general circulation as from a reservoir, while the blood vessels of the gland are comparatively few, detached from the gland cells, and serve merely trophic functions. A very different process occurs in the suprarenals. They are composed of a dense meshwork of blood vessels which are immediately surrounded on all their sides by glandular cells, and it is the blood in situ which is chemically altered, the general circulation being thereby influenced in a secondary maimer only. Such chemical interactions necessitate the action of the living gland. Examination of the suprarenal vein shows the blood to have the characters of oxygenated blood. To supply a secretion which is pumped into the general circulation at any point, let us say, is a very different matter from dealing with the raw material on the spot. The thyroid gland is an appendage of the respiratory system, and the study of its evolution shows that its original function is essentially concerned in the gaseous interchanges of the blood and tissues, “the phenomena following its destruction by disease or experiment being at bottom a disturbance of the gaseous metabolism and mal-assimilation of oxygen by the bodily tissues” (An- driezen). The pituitary gland is an appendage of the central nervous system, and, as the same observer points out, it is originally engaged in providing a secretion carried by oxygen-bearing water, which passes through its duct