THE INHIBITION OF COPPER-INDUCED OVULATION IN THE RABBIT BY PROGESTERONE

Abstract

In the post-partum rabbit a single intraven. inj. of a Cu salt produced ovulation in less than 18 hrs. It was possible to inhibit this reaction by adequate doses of progesterone administered for several days previously. Such progesterone treatment did not prevent the ovarian response to a gonadotrophic extract prepared from the juice of young oat plants. Although the pituitary inhibition produced by progesterone was not quite complete, the available evidence indicated that progesterone treated postpartum rabbits were physiologically comparable to rabbits in which the pituitary stalk had been severed.