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Show Few Hormones Are Employed by the Pituitary Gland WASHINGTON. The pituitary, pitui-tary, master gland of the body, plays its part in growth, sex, maternal instinct in-stinct and other acts of life's drama by means of only a few instead of many hormones hor-mones or chemical messengers messen-gers three or four at the most instead of twelve or more. 'This revolutionary idea of the number of hormones produced by the pituary gland appears in a report re-port by the Carnegie Institution of Washington of the activities of members mem-bers of its staff engaged in research on the endocrine glands. For years the pages of scientific literature have been crowded with reports of new-found activities of the pituitary gland. Each of these, it was thought, was due to a separate hormone produced by the gland for the particular activity observed. Besides growth and sex, the gland affects the body's use of sugar and water, the activity of the thyroid and adrenal glands, milk production and maternal instinct. Prolactin a Busy Hormone. The latest studies seem to show that many of these activities are due to a single hormone of the pituitary, pitui-tary, called prolactin because its first discovered effect was its control con-trol of milk production. This hormone now is reported to be the one responsible for the pitui-tary's pitui-tary's effect on sugar utilization and on the adrenal glands. With Hmulating hormone of the pitutary, prolactin is responsible for the pituitary's effect on growth. It also affects the sex glands and, at least in some species, the liver. Carnegie scientists engaged in the researches giving this new w tion of the pituitary gland were. Drs. Oscar Riddle, Robert W Bates, j p. Schooley, G. C. Smith, E. L. Lahr and M. W. Johnson Research by scientists at other institutions contributed to the new pictare of the powerful and versatile pituitary gland. |