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ASSAY OF POSTERIOR PITUITARY FACTORS WHICH CONTRACT THE LACTATING MAMMARY GLAND^1,2

From the Department of Dairy Husbandry, University of Missouri COLUMBIA, MISSOURI

Abstract

IN 1910, Ott and Scott (1,2) discovered that the injection of an extract of the posterior lobe of the pituitary into a lactating goat caused the contraction of theglands and the discharge of milk. These results were quickly confirmed with lactating cats and dogs (3), with dairy cattle (4) and with women (5). As is the case of other effects of the posterior pituitary extracts, there has long been a question whether the factors involved were true hormones and played a normal role in the removal of milk at nursing or milking time or whether pituitrin had only a pharmacological action on certain types of smooth muscle including those present in the mammary gland.

It has been known for many years that the injection of pituitrin causes the contraction of the mammary gland and permits the removal of milk which is otherwise unavailable (6).

Footnotes

¹ Contribution from the Department of Dairy Husbandry, Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station, Journal Series No. 750.

² This study has been aided in part by a grant from the Ella Sachs Plotz Foundation.

Received May 12, 1941.