Abstract

Soon after it had been shown that an ovarian hormone, presumably estrogen, acting in association with hereditary factors, is responsible for the development of mammary gland carcinoma in mice, and that the absence of this tumor in males is probably due to lack of this hormone (1 a , 1 b ), the first attempts were made to produce breast tumors in castrated males of inbred strains having a marked hereditary tendency to the development of cancer (1 b ) by transplantation of ovaries from their sisters. Cancer did not result from these transplantations. Murray, however, repeating these experiments in a much larger number of mice, obtained positive results in 7 per cent of his animals (2). In 1934 we began to study the effects of transplants of a different kind, namely the anterior lobes of the hypophysis, on the growth and secretion of the mammary gland and on the development of carcinoma in that organ. It was found that these transplants induced carcinoma in female mice and that this effect was mediated by the ovaries. We have briefly reported our principal results in an earlier communication (3 d ). Since then we have continued our investigations, including the study of the organs in control mice which had not received grafts of anterior lobes. Even in this more complete report, however, it will be possible only to summarize our observations.

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