AbstractsMedical & Health Science

Up to the end of the last century, the only mode of functional co-ordination in the organism which was understood was that of reflex nervous mechanism. With the discovery however of specific hormones, the concept that there might be a humoral co-ordinating mechanism began to be entertained. [...] It is now generally accepted that the specific hormones are produced in especially developed glandular organs, the glands of internal secretion, and are transported by the blood stream to distant organs where they exert their effect. [...] In contra-distinction to these, there are substances not only produced in any one organ but which are formed in many tissues as well as tissue juices, which do not require any specific type or cell. These 'tissue-hormones' are found under physiological conditions in the body, and they are supposed to act at the site of production or liberation, thus differing markedly from the specific or hormones of internal secretion. [...] Of all the tissue hormones only three are of known chemical constitution. These are histamine, acetylcholine and adenylic acid and its derivatives. [...] This thesis is concerned mainly with the metabolism of histamine, and in particular with certain aspects of the mechanism of its detoxification in the animal organism. There now follows a general review of the subject, the detailed headings of which will be found in the index. [...]