The Role of Adrenal Steroids in Infection and Immunity

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Abstract
THE adrenal cortex has long been regarded as playing an important role in resistance to infectious disease, but the therapeutic potentialities of cortical hormones in infections have been under considerable question in patients other than those with Addison's disease. The recently demonstrated responses of patients with diverse inflammatory and neoplastic disorders to the administration of pituitary adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) or to cortisone1 2 3 4 indicate that fundamental mechanisms of resistance in the host are affected by the hormones. Our interest has centered on some of these mechanisms, through studies of patients with acute infectious diseases in which the etiology, pathogenesis and immunologic . . .