Abstract
PROF. BEBNABDO ALBEBTO HOUSSAY, of Buenos Aires, elected a foreign member of the Royal Society on May 20, is one of the outstanding men of science of Latin America. He has held the chair of physiology in the University of Buenos Aires since 1919, and has made his laboratory a leading centre for endocrine research. His most remarkable discoveries concern the effect of the anterior pituitary body on carbohydrate metabolism ; he showed that although the removal of the pancreas alone will cause diabetes, yet if the anterior lobe of the pituitary is removed at the same time the animal has no glycosuria and stays in reasonable health. Further analysis made it clear that the anterior lobe of the pituitary secretes a hormone with an opposite effect on sugar metabolism to that of insulin, and that it is the absence of this hormone in the 'Houssay animal' which accounts for the lack of glycosuria when the pancreas is removed. Many other chapters in the complex story of endocrine interactions have been worked out in Prof. Houssay's laboratory and he has recently dealt with the problem of renal hypertension and the nature of the toxic substance which may be liberated by a diseased kidney. He is an honorary member of the Physiological Society and has published various papers in the Journal of Physiology.
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Prof. B. A. Houssay, For.Mem.R.S. Nature 151, 636–637 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151636d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151636d0