ADRENOCORTICAL INFLUENCES UPON THE RECONSTITUTION OF LYMPHATIC TISSUE FOLLOWING ACUTE INVOLUTION1

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Abstract
A single subcutaneous injection of an intoxicating dose of ethyl alcohol, given tointact 17 week old male CBA mice, induced an acute involution of the thymus which was maximal 36 to 48 hours after the injection. Based on a comparison made with the thymo-regressive response to hydrocortisone, the involution observed was estimated to have been due to a fifty-fold increase in adrcnocortical steroid activity. A comparison of the growth curves and the cytologicalmechanisms responsible for the reconstitution of the thymus was then made, between the stressed-intact animals and stressed animals bilaterally adrcnalcctomized at the time of maximal thymicinvolution. In the intact animals, the thymus regained 50% of its total weight loss by the 96th hour after the alcohol injections. Beyond this the rate of reconstitution decreased andthe normal thymic weight was not attained until between the 240th and 288th hours. Adrenalectomy completely reversed the shape of the growth curve. There was an initial inhibition of growth and a delayed but positively accelerated growth resulting in a hyperplasia of the thymus onthe 288th hour. The differences in the growth curves were associated with differences in the cytological mechanisms responsible for growth. It is suggested that there may exist adrcnocortical influences which exert stimulating, as well as moderating, effects, upon the reconstitution of the thymus following acute involution.