Absolute and relative hypophysis weight is greater in the female than in thke male adult human( 1,2), rat(3,4) and pigeon(5). This difference does not exist before puberty in the human(6), rat(7), and rabbit(8). Indeed, Allanson( 9 ) found no sex difference in either immature or adult rabbits, while in the woodchuck( 10) the hypophysis is apparently larger in the male.The present investigation was undertaken in order to determine the hypophysis weightbody weight (HW/BW) ratios in immature, adult, an8d aged dogs.Methods. The dogs in which these ratios were determined had been used for acute studies in intestinal absorption. It was felt that these (experiments did not affect the h yp op h y si s .The dogs weighed from 3.71 to 35.5 kg (mean, 8.889 kg). Fifty-,two of the total of 91 dogs weighed from 5 to 9 kg. They were grouped by body weight in order to compare animals of similar size (TabZe I). While the exact age was not known, dogs whose teeth and genitalia indicated unmistakably that they were immature were classified as puppies.
The teacher or laboratory scientist cannot fulfill completely and simultaneously his classroom or bench responsibilities and the imperative of familiarity with reports of advances in his field and those related to it. Data accumulate so rapidly that, as in agriculture, large portions of bumper crops frequently rot unharvested for want of workers to collect, process, and distribute them.The Cambridge Branch of the (British) Association of Scientific Workers sponsored a discussion last autumn of means whereby efficient science information service might be assured (1). At that conference Professor R. S. Hutton stated that there are about 15,000 worth-while scientific periodicals in which appear annually about 750,000 original papers. Of these, about one-third are abstracted. Chemistry, ". , , the most thoroughly abstracted branch of science," accounts for a great number of the abstracts.More than 5,000,000 books-over one-third of all those published since the invention of printing from movable type-appeared in the years 1900-40. Under the double deluge of books and periodicals, the scholarly 1 Presented before the Division of Chemical Education at the 114th meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, D. C" August, 1948. libraries of this country have doubled in size every 16 years in recent decades (2), the doubling-period decreasing progressively. The growth in volume of scientific literature is estimated at 5 per cent per year (S).
BACKGROUND
The adrenal cortex and sexI n 1942 Hartnian, Kendall and Long published a group of articles concerning respectively the functions, hormones, and protein-and carbohydrate-metabolic mechanisms of the adrenal cortexwithout mentioning sex. There has been accumulated, however, a considerable body of evidence pointing strongly to adrenocortical sex functions.
ClinicalDe Lee, as long ago as 1927, was by no means the first to point out evidences of interrelation of sex functions with the adrenal glands. He noted that in pregnancy the adrenals particularly the cortexundergo hypertrophy.It is further well known that abnormalities of sexual function are related to adrenal alterations. Cushing ('33) associated adrenocortical tumor with pituitary basophilism and its attendant sex-function disturbances. Del Castillo, Schlossberg and Curuchet ( '39) in 89 cases of "suprarenal virilization" found over half characterized by abnormal breast development, the young patients presenting premature libido A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the division of the biological sciences * Present address : Research Division ; Smith, Kline and French Laboratories, h candidacy for the degree of doctor of philosophy. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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