Experimental Diabetes Insipidus

Abstract

When von den Velden (1913) and Farini (1913) demonstrated that the high urine flow of clinical cases of diabetes insipidus could be controlled by the injection of extracts of the posterior lobe of the pituitary, the possibility was indicated that the cause of the diabetes lay in a diminished function of that lobe, and indeed, at post mortem, lesions were often present in the pituitary region. Attempts were therefore made to produce diabetes insip-idus by operative interference in the pituitary region of experimental animals, usually dogs. Such attempts were rarely successful, until in 1935 Fisher, Ingram and Ranson reported the effects of section of the supraoptico-hypophysial tract; their important work is completely described by Fisher, Ingram and Ranson (1938).