The Effect on Liver Structure of Treat- Varied Dietary Conditions Me,nt with Adrenocorticotropin Under

The manner in which the physiology and anatomy of the liver are regulated or modified by endocrine secretions is poorly understood. Further, in view of the broad extent of anterior hypophyseal control over the various structures of the body, it is reasonable to expect that an organ of such varied and diverse functions as the liver might be affected more significantly by hypopliyseal activity than is apparent at the moment. The recent isolation of hypophyseal adrenocorticotropin in an apparently homogeneous form (Li, Simpson and Evans, '42) provides a useful tool for study of the relationship of the anterior hypophysis to the cytology of the liver. One might presume that through a stimulation of adrenal cortical secretion, the physiology, and hence the morphology, of the liver would be altered since it has been established that some of the steroids which have been isolated from the adrenal cortex modify certain metabolic activities of the liver. For example, they have been reported to influence carbohydrate metabolism and to increase the level of liver glycogen. These steroids promote the conversion of protein (Long, Katzin and Fry, '40), pyruvate and d-lactate (Koepf et al., '41) t o carbohydrate and the conversion of glucose