Portal Vessels and Puberty

Abstract

As the 1940s gave way to the 1950s, the major preoccupation of those concerned with the relationship between the nervous and endocrine systems was to tag the neuro- on to endocrinology. Major contributions had been made by men such as G. Roussy and M. Mosinger, who published their Traité de Neuro-endocrinologie in 1946, but the nature of the functional link between the brain and pituitary gland was still highly controversial. Indeed, the role of the brain in influencing the secretion of several hormones of the pars distalis remained to be established. That the brain exercised some trophic role over hypophysial activity, as implied by the embryological development of a close association, was tacitly accepted, but little more. The reputation of my tutor in this field, G. W. Harris, was established by his classical studies at Cambridge of the effects of stimulation of the hypothalamus on hypophysial activity, and by his work, alone and in collaboration with Dora Jacobsohn, on the consequences of complete transection of the pituitary stalk. His Physiological Review on the neural control of the pituitary gland, published in 1948, was also of seminal importance. In 1952 Harris became the first Fitzmary Professor of Physiology at the Institute of Psychiatry, which is associated with the Maudsley Hospital in London. Since a pioneer Department of Neuro- endocrinology was then founded, it is worth describing the events that led up to his appointment.