Bernardo Alberto HoussayBorn 10 Apr 1887; died 21 Sep 1971 at age 84.Argentine physiologist and corecipient, with Carl and Gerty Cori, of the 1947 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. He was noted for discovering how pituitary hormones regulate the amount of blood sugar (glucose) in animals. The hypophysis, or the pituitary gland, is an important, but small secreting gland at the base of the brain, where it lies sunk in a bony hollow in the most sheltered spot of the whole body. Its size is that of a bean in man, a pea in the dog, and a radish seed in the large toad Bufo marinus, which is plentiful in the Argentine. Houssay worked with dogs from which the hypophysis, or sometimes only its anterior lobe, was surgically removed. He then found that a daily implantation of anterior lobe of hypophysis from toads on the operated animals protected the latter from unbalanced levels of insulin, otherwise present. |
