No abstract

When hydrocortisone-4-14C is injected intravenously into mice, the whole of the 14C remains in a form which can be recovered from the carcase by extraction with 70% aqueous methanol.The fraction of recovered 14C which remains soluble in chloroform declines rapidly at first and more slowly thereafter, so that at 1 hr less than 15 % is still chloroform soluble.Glucuronidase increases the chloroform soluble fraction slightly, and a further small amount is made chloroform soluble by acid hydrolysis. The latter fraction seems to increase with time.The rate of destruction of true hydrocortisone has been measured. There is a rapid decomposi-

That the adrenal cortex tends to enlarge during pregnancy has been known for a great many years. It has been known, too, since the work of Venning in 1946, that the amount of active adrenal cortical hormone in the urine is increased in late pregnancy, as judged by bioassay of urinary extracts. This we were able to confirm some years later.