The Adrenals

The adrenals, although discovered as early as 1564, were not known to have any function until the classical work of Addison in 1855. Since then, however, these glands have been the object of intensive research and the mass of literature collected up to date is simply overwhelming. In the present volume, the author has made a successful attempt to analyse the great accumulation of literature, to weed out those which are undesirable or obsolete, and to present a working hypothesis for the benefit of the reader. In describing the anatomical and histological structure of the adrenals, the author has taken the view that the suprarenal glands in man in early life (and also in certain animals) are composed of three distinct physiological entities, instead of the hitherto described two portions, viz, the cortex and medulla. This newly described third type of tissue has been designed as ' androgenic' adrenal tissue which appears to be ' embryonic' and differs from the remainder of the cortical tissue not only in its morphological and histochemical properties but also in the fact that it normally exists only during a certain period of life. This tissue appears to be closely related to the gonads and its hypertrophy under certain pathological conditions {e.g., tumours) in the human being gives rise to a symptom-complex characterized by the masculinization of the female?a syndrome which was previously attributed to a hyper-function of the adrenal cortex, with the elaboration of an excess amount of hormone, specific to the cortical tissue. The views of the author appear, prima facie, to be well considered and we are inclined to agree with him in the hope that this will stimulate further studies in the subject, specially on the relationship of this newly described ' androgenic' zone of the adrenals to the adreno-genital syndrome. Pathological studies of the tumours which give rise to this syndrome and efforts to differentiate such tumours histologically from true cortical tumours