EXPERIMENTAL ACUTE HYPERPARATHYROIDISM II. MORPHOLOGIC CHANGES

Abstract

The pathological physiology of hyperparathyroidism has been extensively investigated, but few studies have been made of the detailed morphological changes that occur in this condition. As is generally recognized, the dog is the species most suitable for the experimental production of acute hyperparathyroidism, and it seems strange that, apart from the observations of Hueper (1) and Learner (2), there should be only scattered and superficial references to the histologic changes in the tissues of this animal, which has been commonly employed for the investigation of the metabolic effects of the parathyroid hormone. Furthermore, the reports of Hueper and Learner appear to be deficient in certain respects: (a) they fail to indicate accurately certain important details of the experimental procedure, such as the quantity and frequency of hormone administration, the duration of the experiment, whether or not the animals died spontaneously and, if so, the time elapsing between death and autopsy; (b) no attempt was made to study variations in histological changes in relation to possible differences in the metabolic status of individual cases. The present experiment was undertaken for the purpose of supplying some of these deficiencies, and of investigating the influence of certain important variations in the chemical composition of the blood upon the deposition of calcium in the tissues during the acute hyperparathyroid state. The chemical findings are reported in detail elsewhere (3).