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It is also very interesting that Renon, with his assistants, Delille and Azam,^[78] were able to increase blood-pressure in numerous cases of infectious diseases and diminish the pulse, and also produce a marked improvement in the feverish condition through the administration of extracts of the pituitary body.

We must insist on the fact that the thyroid and the pituitary body are antagonistic; the thyroid diminishes, the pituitary augments, blood-pressure. The same antagonistic relations exist also between the thyroid and adrenals, as already mentioned.

The adrenals play an important rôle also in the defense of the organism against infections and intoxications, as we will point out in a separate chapter. We will only recall here that already (1903) Sajous^[79] has insisted upon the important rôle of the adrenals in the production of fever.

The co-operation of the sexual glands in protecting the body from infectious disease can be shown by the fact found by Professor Cornil,^[80] of Paris, that in infectious diseases, such, for instance, as typhoid fever, there is frequently sudden menstruation, with abundant metrorrhagia, the autopsy often showing hypertrophy of the corpus luteum.