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THE FUNCTION OP THE THYMUS GLAND*

1919; Oxford University Press; Volume: 3; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1210/endo-3-3-285

1945-7170

Eduard Uhlenhuth,

Science Education and Pedagogy

The function of the thymus gland is less well understood than that of any of the other organs usually enumerated under the terms “glands of internal secretion.” The evidence in favor of the existence of a thymic hormone is extremely meagre, and for the most part is deduced from experiments, the results of which are doubtful in their bearing upon that problem. The warnings which have been raised repeatedly against a premature conception of the thymus as an endocrine gland, therefore, seem to be fully justified. A warning has but recently been sounded by E. R. Hoskins (10). In 1918 he reviewed carefully the most important literature and was led to the conclusion that up to that time no experiments were known which deserved the credit of having proved conclusively the existence of an internal thymic secretion. Referring to the present writer’s experiments (at that time incomplete) upon feeding thymus to the larvae of salamanders, he correctly stated that these could not be regarded as demonstrating an influence of the thymus gland upon growth and development. Hoskins correctly estimated the vagueness of our knowledge with regard to the function of the thymus at the time the article was written. Extensive experiments appeared, therefore, to be necessary to clear up the problem. We have now conducted such experiments on a rather large scale for several years, and have obtained positive evidence in favor of the existence of a thymic secretion. To report some of these experiments and to discuss their bearing upon the function of the thymus is the object of this article.