THE PRODUCTION OF EXPERIMENTAL EXOPHTHALMOS

Abstract

Exophthalmos has been produced in the fish, Fundulus parvipinnis by the administration of anterior pituitary preparations. Pepsin digestion docs not destroy their effectiveness although it does reduce substantially the thyrotropic activity of such preparations. EXOPHTHALMOS is a condition with a long and confusing history. It has been associated with thyroid dysfunction, and experimentally it has been produced by anterior pituitary fractions. Thyrotropin (TSH) has caused experimental proptosis under a variety of conditions. Normal guinea pigs (1), thyroidectomized guinea pigs (2), few injections (3), many injections (4), TSH alone (5), or TSH augmented with other hormones (6) have all been employed. These variable requirements have been recently attributed to the contamination of TSH preparations with a specific hormone which causes the changes leading to exophthalmos (7), or to the participation of more than one known hormone; e.g. TSH and corticotropin (8