Effects of experimental injuries of the pancreas

A review of the experimental work done so far shows clearly that injuries of the pancreas produce different effects on the organism than the complete removal of the organ. After the latter operation the animal succumbs with the symptoms of subacute diabetes, but a comparatively slight injury to the organ may kill it within twenty-four hours, producing an entirely different symptom complex.

It seems very difficult to form a correct idea of the etiological relation between a certain injury to the pancreas and the disease process that so rapidly kills the animal, because in all the experimental work thus far reported, an injury which results fatally in a certain number of animals, produces no effects on others.

Doberauer reported (in Centralbl. für Chir., Nr. 28, 1906) a series of twenty-one experiments on dogs. In each case he doubly ligated and severed the pancreas with identical results in all the experiments, viz., the development of fat necrosis, sub-serous peritoneal hemorrhages and free hemorrhagic fluid in the peritoneum. The animals were either dead or moribund within twenty-four hours. The author ascribes the fatal results in his experiments to a combination of stasis of secretion, some abnormality in the circulation and a lesion of the parenchyma of the pancreas. The experiments of Doberauer differ from all previous investigations in the fact that he obtained the same results in every experiment. It seemed advisable to repeat his experiments, because, if found correct, they could subsequently be varied so as to afford a clearer insight into the etiological moment of the injury which produced the acute fatal disease of the animal.

The operation of Doberauer was first repeated in exactly the same manner on six dogs. Of these animals only one died in twentyfour hours.