AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE GROWTH EFFECTS OF THE ANTERIOR LOBE OF THE HYPOPHYSIS ON THE TEETH AND OTHER TISSUES AND ORGANS

¹ Yale Medical School, New Haven, Connecticut

The present study, initiated to determine effects of the growth-fraction of the anterior lobe of the pituitary body on the teeth and their investing tissues primarily, and on other tissues and organs secondarily, demonstrated the following facts:

1. The conclusions of numerous other workers that there is, in the anterior lobe of the hypophysis, a hormone or substance not necessary to life, but essential for normal or average growth and development, has been substantiated.

2. A part of rapid growth in animals is the late retention, in the tissues, of a larger percentage of water, a retardation in fat storage, and an increase in mineral concentration.

3. One effect of experimental hypophysis-stimulated growth is a definite toxic action on the tissues and organs most susceptible to such influences.

4. The growth-fraction of the hypophysis may accelerate the rate of eruption of the dentition; and, owing to increase in the size of the jaw, may also alter the position of the teeth; but, in the case of animals having a dyphyodont type of dentition, does not change the size or form of the teeth.

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