Abstract
The hypoglycemia and convulsions ordinarily produced by sufficiently large doses of insulin can be entirely prevented, greatly diminished in intensity or retarded in both normal and medulliadrenal inactivated, unanesthetized cats by the simultaneous injection of pituitary extract along with the insulin. The medulliadrenal inactivated animals are more sensitive than normal animals to insulin and, possibly because of this hypersensitiveness, larger doses of pituitary extract are required to afford them the same degree of protection against insulin. If the pituitary extract is administered during the hypoglycemia produced by insulin, severe convulsions and all signs of muscular weakness may be abolished, often without appreciably raising the blood sugar. If, in spite of the simultaneous administration of pituitary extract with insulin to normal or medulliadrenal inactivated animals, the blood sugar later falls to a low value, adrenalin may abolish the apparent general reaction (weakness or convulsions), generally without altering the blood sugar level. Post-pituitary liquid and epinephrine can produce hyperglycemia in cats with the adrenal medulla evacuated and the hepatic nerves severed, but the increase of the blood sugar level in such cases is much less than in normal animals.
Footnotes
- Received January 28, 1929.
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