Abstract
This work is a comparison between the effects of hypophysectomy in the blood picture of adult female rats and the effects of a combined thyroidectomy and adrenalectomy. Sixty days after removal of the hypophysis, the erythrocyte count had decreased from a pre-operative level of 8.78 [plus or minus] 0.4 million cells per cu. mm. to 7.13 [plus or minus] 0.4 million cells; the hematocrit (hct.) reading, from 48 [plus or minus] 2.6% to 33.4 [plus or minus] 0.2%; and the hemoglobin (hb.) level, from 16.8 [plus or minus] 0.7 g. per 100 cc. to 12.0 [plus or minus] 0.9 g. Hypophysectomy also induced significant decreases in mean corpuscular vol. and mean corpuscular hb. No change occurred in mean corpuscular hg. concn. A combined thyroidectomy and adrenalectomy induced similar changes in the blood picture.