Christine Gilbert

Endocrine control of blood sugar, lipaemia, and ketonaemia in diabetic baboons.

Complete removal of the pancreas from normal baboons, as in other mammals, leads to the development of the classical features of diabetes, including hyper glycaemia, ketonaemia and ketonuria, polydipsia, and polyuria. Investigation of the diabetic state in experi mental baboons revealed that the severity of the ketosis could not be correlated with the degree of hyperlipaemia or with the hyperglycaemia, and that the extent of the hyperglycaemia did not influence the hyperlipaemia (Gillman et al., 1958a). On the basis of experiments conducted in dogs, cats, and rats, it is generally believed that the fundamental disorder of carbohydrate meta bolism in diabetic animals is alleviated by hypophysec tomy, or by adrenalectomy, and that the administration of pituitary extracts and of adrenocortical hormones will once again restore the diabetic picture in depan creatized-hypophysectomized and in depancreatized adrenalectomized animals respectively (Houssay and Biasotti, 1931 ; and Long and Lukens, 1936). Reinvestigation of the role of the hypophysis and of the adrenal in depancreatized baboons not receiving insulin will show that the severity of the diabetes, as assessed by the hyperglycaemia and glycosuria, is not immediately alleviated by hypophysectomy although the clinical condition of the baboon is improved. It will also become apparent from the data presented below, taken in conjunction with previously reported experi ments (Gillman et al.9 1958a), that each aspect of the disorder of lipid metabolism is dependent upon a parti cular pattern of endocrine function. It is suggested that analysis of the various lipid fractions in the blood as well as of the blood sugar and blood ketones in each human diabetic may afford a useful guide to the relative participation of the endocrine glands in maintaining the disorder of metabolism.

The thyroid gland and its relation to the menstrual cycle of the baboon, Papio ursinus.

DATA accumulated from the clinic over many years leave little doubt that a subtle but illdefined relationship exists between the functional activity of the thyroid gland and the menstrual rhythm. Indeed, as Marine (1935) has stated, enlargement of the thyroid during menstruation and pregnancy and the increased frequency of goitre during puberty, pregnancy and the menopause have been known for centuries. Although thyroid medication has been recommended from time to time in cases of menstrual irregularities, in sterility of unknown etiology as well as in women showing clinical evidence of hypothyroidism, to our knowledge no systematic study has yet been undertaken to ascertain that nature of thyroid participation in regulating the menstrual rhythm. Amenorrhoea has been described as occurring both in hypothyroidic and in hyperthyroidic women (Selye, 1947). Yet, we have been unable to determine from the available literature whether such amenorrhoea is the consequence of ovarian failure, excess oestrogen or of a persistent corpus luteum. No distinction is made between the mechanism underlying the amenorrhoea of hyperthyroidism and of hypothyroidism. Repeated simultaneous examination of the ovaries and of the uterus in hypothyroidic women is obviously precluded. Moreover, uterine biopsy alone, as we shall show, would