The discovevy of aldosterone can be considered as a hallmark in the field of mineral metabolism. The elucidation of its role in the maintenance of salt and water balance has resulted into the accumulation of a huge literature mainly concerned with the renal effects of the hormone and with the mechanisms controlling its production. [...]

The enzymology of the adrenal gland, in sharp contradistinction to its histology in most species, has remained, until recently, neatly demarcated in two independent fields, without the slightest tangential contact: the cortex, containing a battery of highly specific enzymes operating sequentially upon substrates to produce the physiologically active corticosteroids, and the inner portion of the gland, the medulla, with an equally specific group of catalytic agents attacking exclusively those substrates involved in the elaboration of catecholamines. [...]

Acute pancreatitis is a disease of variable intensity, from mild oedema to a generalized fulminant necrosis; usually it is defined as an acute inflammatory response of pancreatic tissue to various types of injury. The first accurate and comprehensive description of acute haemorrhagic pancreatitis was given in 1889 by Fitz (1), a Boston pathologist, and since that time this form of the disease has been widely discussed in the medical literature. [...]

The induction of hyperaminoaciduria and hyperphosphaturia was investigated in Long Evans and Holtzman rats, using rachitogenic diets low in Vitamin D and calcium or phosphorus. Hyperexcretion of free amino acids and phosphaturia resulted from diminished net tubular absorption and occurred only in animals fed low calcium diets who developed severe hypocalcemia. [...]

Preliminary studies on the biosynthesis of steroids by the rat adrenal using radioactive precursors have revealed that under 'in vitro' conditions progesterone-4-14c is transformed to at least 23 labeled products (1,2). Out of these only 8 have been identified. [...]

Among the various biological systems regulating the living organism, the endocrine glands have been called upon, more often than others, to provide explanations for various aspects of behavior. The concept that behavior could be influenced by substances endogenous to various tissues and organs, reaches back to primitive times. Long before the beginning of the scientific era, primitive people attempted to give themselves more courage or whatever qualities they felt desirable, or even to cure specific illnesses, by consuming the appropriate parts of the beasts they killed. The "medicine man" bad a whole armamentarium of extracts or powders of various organs which were used to cure the failings of the analogous parts in his patients. Description of the use of dried or powdered testes to restore vigor and sexual potency can be found in early writings. [...]

[...] The aim of this work is twofold. Firstly, a tentatively critical review of the mechanisms involved in the regulation of vascular smooth muscle reactivity as a basis for an interpretation of the above mentioned phenomena will be made. Secondly, we shall present an account of our experimental approach to this problem involving "in vivo" and "in vitro" studies of vascular reactivity to angiotensin and norepinephrine in the rat. [...]

There is considerable evidence to support the hypothesis that the normal mammalian kidney has an antihypertensive action, that the renal medulla is an important site of this action, and that extracts of renal medulla contain biologically active substances mediating this effect. This evidence will be reviewed. [...]

Life is characterized by its movement, somewhat independent of the milieu surrounding its substance. This movement can be perceived in time by a succession of changes which can be computed to yield a velocity in a certain direction and, by addition of quantitative analysis, a rate. [...]

In 1913 van Slyke and Meyer showed that amino acids are rapidly absorbed from the blood by the tissues of various animals. The authors found that the intracellular concentrations are in excess of those in the blood and concluded that the mode of entry into the cells must be by a mechanism other than simple diffusion. Almost forty years elapsed before these observations were confirmed by Krebs et al in 1949. In the meantime, microbes bad not been considered as beinq capable of absorbing (transporting) amino acids from their environment. However, a number of perplexing observations concerning amino acid inter-relationships in the nutritional requirements of micro-organisms bad been reported. These observations centred around the ability of structurally related amino acids to permit growth in the presence of inhibitory concentrations of certain amino acids or analogues, or to prevent growth in the presence of an adequate supply of a required amino acid.