The action of hydrocele fluid and certain other pathological liquids on some of the objects used in biological tests for epinephrin / G.N. Stewart and T.F. Zucker.

  • George Neil Stewart
Date:
[1913?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The action of hydrocele fluid and certain other pathological liquids on some of the objects used in biological tests for epinephrin / G.N. Stewart and T.F. Zucker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    August 28 caused a fair increase of tone in a rabbit intestine seg- ment, although distinctly less than that produced by dog serum di- luted with five volumes of Ringer solution. On the uterus preparation from an adult non-pregnant rabbit the same inhibition succeeding the increase of tone which was ob- served with the other specimen of the fluid from this patient was noted. We are not in a position to state what the cause of this. inhibition was. The other transudate examined (hydrocele fluid) also exhibited this effect, although to a smaller extent. It is a phenomenon which we have not observed with blood serum or plasma and is probably due to some constituent of the pathological liquids not present, or present in much smaller amount in blood. However this may be, the uterus observations again illustrate the point on which we have more than once insisted elsewhere, that we cannot postulate without experiment a similar action of a given serous liquid on different test objects any more than we can postu- late a similar action of different serous liquids on one and the same test object. Each liquid must be investigated separately for each test object. This point is well illustrated by the tracings reproduced in figures 15 and 16 in which the action of blood serum from a fatal case of diabetic coma is compared with that of dog serum (of September 12). In figure 15 with a rabbit intestine preparation, Ringer solu- tion was replaced at 14 by the dog serum and at 16 by the diabetic serum. In figure 16 with the uterus preparation from the same rabbit (a non-pregnant adult), Ringer solution was replaced at 36 by the diabetic serumsand at 38 by the same dog serum as was used in figure 15. The increase of tone in the uterus segment caused by the diabetic serum was much greater than that produced by the dog serum, whereas the dog serum occasioned a greater increase of tone in the intestine segment than the diabetic serum. On the artery rings the diabetic serum caused an unusually prompt and large effect. The diabetic serum was obtained from a young woman twenty years old, a telephone operator. She collapsed from overwork and was treated by her physi- cian for nervous breakdown for some weeks before she applied for treatment at Lakeside and Western Reserve University dispensary. On admission at the dispensary she showed tachycardia, exophthalmos, slight thyroid enlargement, and loss of weight. Sugar was present in the urine to the extent of 3 per cent.
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