PITUITARY-DIABETES IN THE CAT; RECOVERY FOLLOWING INSULIN OR DIETARY TREATMENT

Abstract

FOLLOWING THE ANNOUNCEMENT (1) that permanent diabetes could be produced in dogs by means of anterior pituitary extract, Young (2) reported experiments in other species. He administered crude anterior pituitary extract to mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits and cats. Of these animals, the mouse, rat and guinea pig were “almost completely insensitive” to the diabetogenic action of the extract. Rabbits and cats showed slight and transitory glycosuria in 50 per cent or less of the animals tested, whereas all but 1 of 25 dogs developed glycosuria. In the present work the production of pituitary-diabetes in cats was undertaken, a), to learn whether the native resistance to pituitary extract could be overcome by partial pancreatectomy in this species as it had been in the rat (3) and if so, whether permanent diabetes could be produced; and, b), to develop a smaller and more economical animal than the dog for the study of this condition.