Text: REPORTS OF READING 281-58 R1. PITUITARY BODY (Copied from Gray's Anatomy) - Function: Extracts give a substance which causes constriction of the blood vessels with rise of arterial blood-pressure. This substance seems to have a stimulating effect on most of the smooth muscles, acting directly upon the muscle causing contraction. It also increases the secretion of the urine; of the mammary glands when in functional activity; and of the cerebrospinal fluid. Many authors regard the pars nervosa and the pars intermedia as the posterior lobe. The pars anterior exercises a stimulating effect on the growth of the skeleton and probably on connective tissues in general. Enlargement of the hypophysis and the cavity of the sella turcica are found in the rare disease ACROMEGALY, which is characterized by gradual enlargement of the face, hands, and feet, with headache and often a peculiar type of blindness. The blindness is due to the pressure of the enlarging hypophysis on the optic chiasma. THE DUCTLESS GLANDS (Gray's Anatomy) - Certain organs very similar to secreting glands, but differing in one essential particular, viz., they do not possess any ducts by which their secretion is discharged - that is to say they are capable of forming, from materials brought to them, INTERNAL SECRETION in the blood, substances which have a certain influence upon the nutritive and other changes going on in the body. This secretion is carried into the blood stream, either directly by the veins or indirectly through the medium of the lymphatics. These glands include the THYROID, the PARATHYROIDS and the THYMUS: the PITUITARY BODY and the PINEAL BODY; the chromaphil and cortical systems to which belong the SUPRARENALS, the PARAGANGLIA and AORTIC GLANDS, the GLOMUS CAROTICUM and perhaps the GLOMUS COCCYGEUM. The SPLEEN is usually included in this list and somtimes the LYMPH and HEMOLYMPH NODES described with the lymphatic system. Other glands as the liver, pancreas and sexual glands give off internal secretions, as do the gastric and intestinal mucous membranes. R2. 8/29/42 See rdg. 2803-1, example of glands affecting entire body. R3. 3/6/43 See 281-63 on glands.

See Also:

Source: