Studies in the Metabolic Changes Induced by Administration of Guanidine Bases

Paton and Findlay (I) confirmed the results of former workers in a series of critical investigations, in which they found that true tetany developed only after complete parathyroidectomy and that when one external parathyroid was left with its blood supply intact, no symptoms, or at most transient tremors, appear. Many hypotheses concerning the cause of tetany have been proposed, especially from the standpoint of parathyreopriva. One states that the lack of the parathyroid produces a toxic substance in the body, or the normal function of this gland is to neutralize the toxins formed during normal metabolism. The other concerns the deficiency of some essential substance in the blood and tissues, especially calcium, which exerts an inhibition on the hyperexcitability of the nerves. It is well known that injection of calcium salts removes the symptoms for a time, but that bleeding and transfusion of saline solution (2, 3) and that bleeding followed by injection of an indifferent solution free from calcium (Ringer’s solution) (4) have the same effect. These facts seem to point out that the Ca deficiency is not the true cause. Beebe’s experiments in which he reduced the symptoms by injection of the extracts of parathyroids (5) and of the nucleoprotein of parathyroids (6), lead us to believe that the symptoms are due to some poison produced as a consequence of normal metabolism incident to the removal of the parathyroid. Recently Paton and Findlay (7) suggested that in tetany some toxic substances, especially guanidine