WATER DIURESIS AND WATER INTOXICATION IN RELATION TO THE ADRENAL CORTEX1

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Abstract
Adrenalectomy resulted in prompt diminution in the diuretic response to water and a susceptibility to water intoxication. The diuretic response to saline soln. (i.p.) also was subnormal, notably a few days after operation. Normal rats could be protected from otherwise lethal water intoxication cither by DCA or cortical extract. Body temp. changes proved a reliable indication of the progress of water intoxication in all animals. Two factors accounted for the lack of water diuresis in operated rats: a delayed intestinal absorption and an inability to excrete absorbed water. Normal rats lost large amts. of chloride through the kidney and by diarrhea when forced into water intoxication. Adrenalectomized rats lost considerable chloride by diarrhea, relatively little in the urine, but large amts. were shifted into the unabsorbed fluid of the gut. The large fall in plasma chloride could be accounted for in most groups by the external loss and the shift to the gut without the assumption of an increase in extracellular fluid volume.