GLAND SECRETION
HOW THE BODY KEEPS WARM The mechanism by which the bodykeeps warm has received a new scientific explanation. Dr. Charles E. de M. Sajous, professor of endocrinology at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks that adrenin, the substance secreted by the adrenal glands, small organs just above the kidneys, plays an important part in the production .'of body heat.
Physicians and biologists have known vaguely for years that heat is released by some process of union of the bodv cells with the oxygen of the air through the action of the blood in the tissues, but just what chemical changes are involved has remained a mystery.
Dr. Sajous believes that adrenin is carried to the lungs where it takes up oxygen and is then absorbed by the red corpuscles of the blood and transported to the tissue cells. Here the complex chemical compounds that originate in the glands react with the partially digested food products to produce heat. This enables the enzymes or ferments present, which are very sensitive to heat, to complete the digestion of the food products, rendering them available for the work each tissue carries on.
This heat action must be so controlled as to avoid excess heat, since any rise above 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the normal temperature of tiie body, means fever. Any excess is normally prevented bv the” glandular substance cholesterol, while adequate production is assured by thyroxin, from the tlivroid gland of the neck, which also acts as a stimulus to the gland product lecithin, the heat producer. The beneficial effects of light and heat treatments, such as ultra violet and Roentgen ravs, are due to their speeding up of this physiological process, states “Science ” This heat energy, by increasing the activity of the enzvmes present in the tissue cells, enables them to break down the disease-causing germs and the toxins they produce. Treatments with light and heat radia-
tion are beneficial up to a certain limit, but care must be exercised that they do not increase the body temperature beyond this point.
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Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 46, 18 November 1926, Page 17
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340GLAND SECRETION Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 46, 18 November 1926, Page 17
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