rejected, but explained away as “resorbed into the body.”
In addition to the patients, the doctor benefitted by surrounding himself with luxury on the entire first floor of an expensive Paris hotel including chefs, chauffeurs, secretaries, valets and several mistresses.
This lasted considerable time while attracting the very wealthy including business tycoons, captains of industry, kings, princes, lords, prime ministers, plus anyone with the financial wherewithal to afford such luxuries.
In time, however, the doctor was vilified and has passed into a medical footnote of history, only to be resurrected in the more modern era by the information that testicular cells are relatively immune to the rejection phenomenon (?) However, the reader can rest assured that monkey gland transplantation will never return especially since some accuse the doctor of being responsible for transplanting the aids virus from monkeys to man.
So now with that footnote to medical history behind us, it’s time to get back to the endocrine glands. That brings us to the next advance: the discovery of the function of the pituitary gland, an important development in the medical profession’s understanding of endocrine function.
PITUITARY GLAND
It was not until 1886 that the dots were connected between Acromegaly and Gigantism (extreme enlargement of the face, body and extremities), and a tumor of the pituitary gland. This discovery proved that the pituitary was a member of the endocrine family. Not only a member, but subsequent information proved the role of the pituitary as the master gland, the conductor of the endocrine symphony orchestra, wielding control of all the other endocrine glands. No longer were the other endocrine glands considered autonomous; they worked under the leadership of the pituitary conductor.
The pituitary gland, located at the base of the brain and about the size of a pea, consists of an anterior lobe, intermediate lobe and posterior lobe, all involved in hormone production as follows:
•ADRENOCORTICOTROPHIC HORMONE (ACTH)
Stimulates the adrenal gland to liberate glucocorticoids essential for the stress response
•THYROID STIMULATING HORMONE (TSH)
Stimulates the thyroid gland to liberate thyroid hormones essential for metabolic regulation
•FOLLICLE STIMULATING HORMONE (FSH) AND LEUTENIZING HORMONE (LH)
Regulates testosterone production from the testes and estrogen production from the ovaries
•PROLACTIN (PRL)
Stimulates breast milk production and regulates menstrual periods
•GROWTH HORMONE (GH)
Signals certain liver cells to produce somatomedin-C, which promotes body growth in children
•ANTIDIURETIC HORMONE (ADH)
Stimulates the kidney to save water by preventing its excretion from the blood into the urine thus concentrating the urine
There you have it; hormones of the pituitary, the master gland, the conductor of the endocrine symphony. The pieces were falling into place.
Although they all work in harmony, for our purpose of understanding how stress works, ACTH and GLUCOCORTICOIDS as well as EPINEPHRINE will be the principle focus.
The endocrine story was not yet complete. The next advance was the discovery of the role of the hypothalamus.
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