[Footnote 68: Gautrelet and Thomas: Comptes rendus de la Société de Biologie, 1909, lxvii, p. 233; and Macleod: Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, 1911, viii, p. 110 (true for left adrenal and left splanchnic).] [Footnote 69: Wertheimer and Battez: Archives Internationales de Physiologie, 1910, ix, p. 392.] CHAPTER VI IMPROVED CONTRACTION OF FATIGUED MUSCLE AFTER SPLANCHNIC STIMULATION OF THE ADRENAL GLAND In the older literature on the adrenal glands the deleterious effect of their absence, or the beneficial effect of injected extracts, on the contraction of skeletal muscle was not infrequently noted. As evidence accumulated, however, tending to prove an important relation between the extract of the adrenal medulla (adrenin) and the sympathetic nervous system, the relations with the efficiency of skeletal muscle began to receive less consideration. The muscular weakness of persons suffering from diseased adrenals (Addison’s disease) was well recognized before experimental work on the glands was begun. Experiments on rabbits were reported in 1892 by Albanese,[70] who showed that muscles which were stimulated after removal of the glands were much more exhausted than when stimulated the same length of time in the same animal before the removal. Similarly Boinet[71] reported, in 1895, that rats recently deprived of their adrenals were much more quickly exhausted in a revolving cage than were normal animals. More direct evidence of the favorable influence of adrenal extract on skeletal muscle was brought forward by Oliver and Schäfer.[72] After injecting the extract subcutaneously into a frog they found that the excised gastrocnemius muscle registered a curve of contraction about 33 per cent higher and about 66 per cent longer than the corresponding muscle not exposed to the action of the extract. Similar prolongation of the muscle curve was observed after injecting the extract intravenously into a dog. A beneficial effect of adrenal extract on fatigued muscle, even when applied to the solution in which the isolated muscle was contracting, was claimed by Dessy and Grandis,[73] who studied the phenomenon in a salamander.[*] Further evidence leading to the same conclusion was offered in a discriminating paper by Panella.[74] He found that in cold-blooded animals the active principle of the adrenal medulla notably reënforced skeletal muscle, prolonging its ability to do work, and improving its contraction when fatigued. In warm-blooded animals the same effects were observed, but only after certain experimental procedures, such as anesthesia and section of the bulb, had changed them to a condition resembling the cold-blooded.