ANTIHORMONES

Abstract

Gonadotrophic, thyro-trophic, prolactin, corticosterone, diabetogenic. and other antihormones are known. They inactivate in vivo the corresponding hormones. As the name indicates, they are more like antibodies than like chalones. In the times of their appearance and disappearance in relation to a course of hormone injs. they resemble antibodies. They are produced only when the reticulo-endothelial system is functioning. They are not entirely sp. specific but the deviations have precedents in immunology. The hormone preps. which cause the production of antihormones are either heterol-ogous or relatively impure; the hormone can be separated by suitable methods from the carrier substance, which is antigenic while the hormonal radical is not. Although there exist data indicating that the hormonal portion of the antigen is a haptene, yet at present this cannot be assured; the various hormones may differ in this respect. The presence of antihormones in the sera of untreated animals has been reported. In certain instances of injecting gonadotrophic hormone the serum has developed power augmenting, instead of opposing, the action of the hormone. Possibly the fact that an animal injected repeatedly with heterologous or ill-purified hormones develops antihormones and so becomes refractory to the effects of its own hormone as well as to the injs. may be turned by investigators to a useful purpose in cases of endocrine hyperfunction.