Annual report of the Runwell Hospital : 1948.

  • Runwell Hospital (Essex, England)
Date:
1948
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Runwell Hospital : 1948. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/28 (page 15)
    These are only a few examples out of a large number of experiments; they were quoted to illustrate the type of problem which is being investigated and the results that may be obtained. In the course of these experiments it was found that ex¬ tracts of washed human red blood cells (“haemolysates”) invari¬ ably have a very strong activating effect on rat brain hexo- kinase. This effect has been studied in detail, and although it has not yet been possible to find an entirely satisfactory explan¬ ation, a number of possibilities were ruled out. The results so far indicate that the effect is due to the presence of a specific and fairly heat-resistant protein which is not identical with hexokinase. Studies on Insulin shock therapy. It has been shown by Mayer'Gross and Walker (1949) that insulin coma could in many cases be terminated by the intraven¬ ous injection of glutamic acid. These authors expressed the opinion that the effect was the result of a direct action of glu¬ tamic acid on the cells of cerebral cortex. For various reasons this interpretation seemed improbable to us and we assumed, as a working hypothesis, that glutamic acid acts by stimulating the secretion of adrenaline which in turn would lead to mobilisation of liver glycogen and a rise of blood sugar. We were able to support this view by a number of observations. An attempt has also been made, by a critical review of the literature, to show the adrenergic character of the effects of glutamic acid in the treatment of convulsive disorders and of mental defici¬ ency. A study has been made of concentration changes of various blood constituents during insulin shock treatment. Of partic¬ ular interest in this respect was the behaviour of adenosine triphosphate. This substance was estimated in blood for the first time by a specific enzymic method and was found to in¬ crease slightly during the later stages ot hypoglycaemia. In addition, the blood levels of calcium and of citrate were deter¬ mined and both were found to be diminished. The estimations of citric acid in blood were carried out by a new method developed in this laboratory, which represents a considerable advance compared with previous methods, and has already been adopted by many biochemists. Miscellaneous. The method of citric acid estimation was originally devised in connection with experiments on the enzyme aconitase, a member of the family of enzymes concerned with the com¬ bustion of glucose. This enzyme proved to be exceptionally