Division of Laboratories of Montefiore Hospital and the Hospital for Joint Diseases, New York.
J Exp Med. 1925 Aug 31;42(3):413-8. doi: 10.1084/jem.42.3.413.
Previous experimental work concerning enlargement of the thymus has dealt mainly with the regeneration which follows partial or subtotal removal, or with the regeneration which follows transplantation. We planned our experiments to obtain evidence of uncomplicated hypertrophy by removing one lobe and studying the enlargement of the remaining lobe. Our results clearly indicate that such hypertrophy takes place in young animals. They emphasize the functional importance of this gland before puberty, since the compensatory enlargement does not take place after puberty. The results further indicate that with the onset of involution there is a marked or almost total decline in the function of the gland, in spite of the fact that anatomically the thymus may persist to old age. With the appearance of a stimulus for regeneration, as, for instance, suprarenalectomy, the involuted gland takes on functional activity.
先前有关胸腺增大的实验工作主要涉及部分或全部切除后的再生，或涉及移植后的再生。我们计划进行实验，通过切除一叶来获得单纯性肥大的证据，并研究剩余一叶的增大。我们的结果清楚地表明，这种肥大发生在年轻动物身上。它们强调了青春期前该腺体的重要功能，因为青春期后不会发生代偿性增大。结果还表明，尽管从解剖学上看，胸腺可能持续到老年，但随着退化的开始，腺体的功能明显或几乎完全下降。当出现再生刺激时，例如肾上腺切除术，退化的腺体就会恢复功能。
