Pituitary Prizewinner

After the American Association for the Advancement of Science had ended its winter meeting in Manhattan (TIME, Jan. 7) and the 5,000 scientists were scattering back to their schools and laboratories, last week, Dr. Shirley Wynne, New York City's health commissioner, commented ruefully, in effect: "It is well to listen when the scientists consider the age of the earth, the limitation of space, and the ultimate structure of matter. But the public would be more grateful if, from the gathering, there came word of cures for such dread maladies as cancer, pneumonia, heart disease, Bright's disease, pulmonary tuberculosis, influenza and meningitis." Yet close and happily upon Dr. Wynne's comment came the announcement that the best paper of 2,000 read at the meetings was of direct import to medicine. It was Oliver Kamm's "Hormones from the Pituitary Gland." Dr. Kamm, 40, director of Parke, Davis & Co.'s chemical research laboratories,* discovered and reduced to pure form two hormones of the pituitary gland. The pituitary is located at the underside of the brain just back of the nose and has a little skull of its own (the sella turcia). Ancients believed it the seat of the soul. Mai development of the pituitary creates lopsided people -- giants, dwarfs, grotesquely infantile & fat ones. Pituitary extract (pituitrin), doctors have known for a score of years, does three things:1) it raises blood pressure. 2) it contracts the pregnant uterus and thus is a valuable aid in childbirth, 3) it controls the excessive output of water by the kidneys (diabetes insipidus). It seemed strange that one gland was so diversely protean in effect. Perhaps there were more than one pituitary hormone severally at work. Dr. Kamm, who taught chemistry at the universities of Michigan and Illinois, attacked the problem for Parke, Davis. Two hormones do exist, named by him "alpha hypophamin pitocin" and "beta hypophamin pitressin." Alpha causes uterine contraction. Beta raises blood pressure and controls the amount of water which the body retains in its tissues. A man with an abnormally large amount of pituitary beta in his system becomes, pudgy fat; with an abnormally small amount, scrawny skinny. By realizing this doctors can control obesity by restricting a patient's liquid as well as solid food. Presumably they can fatten up puny individuals by dosing with pituitary beta and water. For isolating those hormones, for describing his methods of work very clearly, the Association for the Advancement of Science described Dr. Kamm's talk the best delivered during the meeting. And for that they gave him a $1,000 prize. ^

*Makers of biological drugs make profound researches for their products. Parke, Davis of Detroit is especially famed for andrenalin, Mulford of Philadelphia for snakebite antivenoms and acidophilus bacteria, Lederle of New York for diptheria antitoxins. Lilly of Indianapolis for liver extract. Patch of Boston for cod liver oil, Squibb of New York for milk of magnesia.