Hypothalamic Control of the Anterior Pituitary [antikvár]

Foreword to the Third Edition In preparing a third edition of this Monograph five years after the favourable reception ofthe first (English) edition, and a second edition in Russian, the authors had to face the task not only to incorporate some of their new observations and to bring up the literature to the present date, but also to take into account certain changes in general outlook and shifts in the importance attributed to various techniques, facts and aspects of the subject. Some changes in the structure of the Monograph, therefore, have been unavoidable. The introductory chapter (I) has been left unchanged as it was intended originally to give, and it still giyes, a quasi historical background of thoughts with which in mind the work was undertaken by the authors in the early fifties. Only minor changes have been made in the anatomical chapter (II), mainly by including some new ultrastructural information. Part F of the chapter on direct and indirect innervation of the anterior pituitary had to be extended considerably, owing to the full corroboration by recent ultra-structural studies of the earlier Golgi observations on the peculiar nerve endings in the median eminence, first reported in the first edition of this Monograph. On the whole, the so-called parvicellular (neurosecretory) or tubero-infundibular neuron system had to receive much greater consideration throughout this edition. — Chapter III summarizes the most important new body of evidence on the trophic dependence of the anterior pituitary from a restricted part of the hypothalamus. What was available of this material at the time of the first edition, was presented in Chapter VII, however, the studies had been then in a very preliminary stage so that the whole chapter had to be changed fundamentally. Most of this material is based on two remarkable experimental procedures" developed by Dr. B. Halász and works carried out with various collaborators. Some of the material of the original Chapter III of the earlier edition, especially that on partial or total interruption of the pituitary stalk, has been incorporated into the new chapter, while the material on the general consequences upon endocrine organs of hypothalamic lesions of various localizations was left out from this edition. Chapter III is the individual work of Dr. B. Halász. — Chapter, IV on the thyrotrophic mechanisms, originally written by Dr. B. Mess, has been extended by this author in two respects: (1) Developmental aspects, although not primarily belonging to the scope of this Monograph, have been elucidated in a remarkable manner by Dr. Mess and co-workers. Some of this material — as far as it was considered to be in direct relation to hypothalamo-