[Six papers on the posterior pituitary hormone and the parasympathetic nervous system] / by Harvey Cushing.

  • Harvey Williams Cushing
Date:
[1931?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Six papers on the posterior pituitary hormone and the parasympathetic nervous system] / by Harvey Cushing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/54 page 164
    under certain circumstances large numbers of apparently intact cells, for they still contain recognizable nuclei, may actually thus migrate from its epithelial investment into the substance of the pars nervosa in their passage through which they subsequently become hyalinized.* This casting off of the cytoplasm in mass or actual discharge of the entire cell body are by no means unique modes of secretion of glandular cells.** What is more, the process, as we know now, is unquestionably under the direct control of certain nerve centers in the interbrain. The presence of a large number of non-myelinated nerve fibers in the neuro- hypophysis, apparently first observed by Ramon y Cajal in immature mice (1894), was subsequently confirmed by his pupil, Tello® (1912), for the human gland. It, however, was not until the papers of Pines‘ (1925) and of Greving® (1926) that the diencephalic centers, from which the fibres take their origin, and their amazingly rich arborization in the posterior lobe came to be fully appreciated and was brought to the atten- tion of physiologists and clinicians. The interstitial passage of the hyaline bodies through the neurohypo- physis and its stalk toward the tuber has meanwhile been observed by many. Edinger® injected the posterior lobe with india-ink and though the mass tended to spread in the direction of the tuber, it did not enter the ventricle. Herring, however, as did Cushing and Goetsch, gave photomicrographs showing hyaline globules actually caught in the process of their extrusion into the ventricle, an observation which has been con- firmed among others by Hines,’ by da Costa,* by Espino,? and by Remy Collin, 442 From the physiological side, though the conclusions drawn from their early experiments by Cushing and Goetsch met with criticism,!’ the unmistakable presence in the fluid of a substance, which if not the active principle at least possesses similar properties, has since been clearly demon- strated by a number of workers who have taken advantage of the more exact and dependable oxytocic and melanophore-expanding properties of the extract subsequently discovered by Dale and by Hogben. Thus Cow! (1915), Dixon (1923), Trendelenburg!® (1924), Janossy and Horvath!’ (1925), Miura!® (1925), Trendelenburg!® (1926), Blau and Hancher® (1926), Mestrezat and v. Caulaert”® (1926), McLean”! (1928), Hoff and Wermer”? (1928), and Karplus and Peczenik?* (1930), have * A photomicrograph illustrating such a cellular migration was given in the author’s monograph on the pituitary body, 1912, page 199. ** The three methods of secretory discharge which histologists now recognize are: (1) merocrine, in which the secretory granules are periodically extruded without par- ticular change of form in the cell, as in salivary, gastric or anterior pituitary glands; (2) holocrine, in which the entire cell body is cast off, as in the sebaceous glands; (8) apocrine, in which the ripened cytoplasm is disgorged, as in mammary secretion and in the case of certain cutaneous glands, particularly of the lower animals.
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