THE STRUCTURE AND DIFFERENTIATION OF THE SPECIFIC CELLULAR ELEMENTS OF THE PARS INTERMEDIA OF THE HYPOPHYSIS OF THE DOMESTIC PIG

Abstract

The bearing of these results on the Herring-Cushing theory of pituitary secretion is apparent. For the first time a true secretion antecedent has been demonstrated in the cells of the pars intermedia, an antecedent which appears in the cells at the same period of development at which active pressor effects may be obtained from the gland extracts. The route of export of this material from the gland to its point of utilization, however, is unknown; it may go by way of the blood or, as required by the Herring theory, by the transneural route to the third ventricle. The objections to the latter conclusion have been amply expanded in the introduction to this paper, but here may be emphasized the fact that the fetal pig hypophysis contains no hyaline bodies. Indeed they are rare in the adult, though there may be seen in the cells of the pars nervosa in the processes of its intrinsic cells, granular deposits which we believe to be the antecedents of the hyaline bodies but which in the pig rarely are discharged and aggregated into discrete masses as in other mammals. The fact that some observers have obtained positive pressor effects from the nervous part of the posterior lobe, exclusive of the pars intermedia, need not weigh very heavily in attempting to trace the course of the secretion, when we reflect that the difficulties of making such a mechanical separation are almost insuperable, and that the chemical product of the pars intermedia is so soluble and vanishes from the cells so rapidly that it may well be diffusible through the thin membranes which intervene and penetrate post mortem into adjacent parts. We are inclined, therefore, to the view that the secretion leaves the gland by the vascular route rather than by way of the interfibrillar spaces of the pars nervosa.