An Experimental Study of the Relation of the Ovary to Fat Metabolism

From these observations there seemed to be little doubt that the follicular fluid of the ovary contains an active growth-stimulating substance and one capable of initiating an active digestion of a foreign fat, which might otherwise remain unabsorbed for an indefinite time in the tissues of these animals (2). We have not attempted to ascertain whether this substance exciting growth and a digestion of the oil is the same or in any way related to the substance exciting estrus in these animals. That it may be a different substance from the estrus-exciting substance is suggested, however, by the fact that a similar excitant of growth and fat digestion has recently been extracted by the same method from the corpus luteum of pigs. These extracts of corpora lutea have not excited estrus in spayed rats. In the one rat in which the pure oil was absorbed, the cells did not invade the oil, but the capsule remained cellular and the oil gradually disappeared from the space. In these experiments in which the active substance was added to the oil the cells have always invaded the oil.