208 Loc. cit.
Jacquet has described pigmentary changes in the ganglia of the cord as well as in those of the abdomen, and Guermonprez209 alterations in the brain similar to those of senile dementia. At the Congress in 1881 at London, Semmola of Naples showed a figure illustrative of degeneration of the ganglia of the abdomen, and also an infiltration of leucocytes in the neighborhood of the central canal of the cord, from a case of Addison's disease without affection of the adrenals.
209 Quoted by Burger, loc. cit.
PATHOLOGY.—The suprarenal organs are usually grouped with the blood-vascular organs. From the number of nerve-fibres—sympathetic, pneumogastric, and even phrenic—passing to the medullary part, and from the presence of cells resembling nerve-corpuscles, Leydig and others have thought that this portion belonged to the nervous system. We know absolutely nothing of their functions. They do not appear to be essential to life, but may be removed, crushed, or destroyed with impunity, though the operation is not without danger from their close proximity to important structures. They are sometimes congenitally absent. They are proportionately larger during foetal life, but they do not appear to atrophy as age advances; indeed, it would appear from the observation of Mattei (Jaccoud) that they augment in volume with increasing years. Their chemistry has attracted much attention. Vulpian has described a material which gives a green, blue, or black color with perchloride of iron, and with oxidizing substances a rose-red; and the same observer found also hippuric and taurocholic acids. Leucin, margarin, myeline (Segilsohn), and a special coloring matter (Arnold), have been described. Henle has pointed out that the central part in the horse became of a rich brown with bichromate of potash from the reduction of the brown oxide of chromium. MacMunn's210 observations on the spectroscopic appearance of the pigment of the suprarenals point to these glands as in some way concerned with the transformation of the effete coloring matters of the body.
210 Paper read before the Physiological Society of London, Journal of Am. Med. Assoc., 1885, March 21.
An immense number of experiments have been made with a view of ascertaining the function of these bodies, and extirpations, crushings, etc. have been made—among others by Brown-Séquard,211 Gratiolet,212 Phillipeaux,213 Harley,214 Nothnagel,215 the general result of which appears to be that they are not important organs and that they have no influence in the production of pigment. Recently, Tizzoni216 has stated—as Brown-Séquard had done—that pigmentation followed extirpation in the rabbit; but there is a large amount of negative evidence by most careful observers; as, for example, Nothnagel, who found no changes in 153 animals in which he had destroyed the suprarenals.
211 Archives générale, 1858.
212 Ibid., 1856, ii.
213 Ibid., 1858.
214 Med.-Chir. Review, vol. xxi.