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The morphological transformation of the exorbital lacrimal gland of the castrated rat following subcutaneous injection of steroids, described in detail in the preceding paper, was employed as the end-point of androgenic activity. The relative effectiveness of androsterone and of thirteen derivatives of the 5α-androstane series was then determined using testosterone as reference standard. Androsterone proved one-half as active as the standard; 5α-androstan-17β-ol, 5α-androstane-3β,17β-diol and 5α-androst-1-ene-3,17-dione were much less active, whereas 5α-androstane-3α,17β-diol was 3 times as potent as testosterone. Introduction of a conjugated double bond at C 1,2 of 17β-hydroxy-5α-androstan-3-one produced a four-fold increase of activity from a level a little lower than that of testosterone; a further increase in androgenicity was obtained on methyl substitution at C 1 of the Δ1-5α-isomer of testosterone. Esterification consistently increased the activities of the 5α-androstane derivatives tested.

Several observations give support to the view that a hyperglycemic glycogenolytic factor, called glucagon in older literature, is normally produced and secreted by the alpha cells of the pancreatic islets and perhaps by the argentophyl cells of the gastrointestinal mucosa (Sutherland & de Duve, 1948; Cavallero & Malandra, 1951). It has been assumed that this factor could be of no little importance in some disturbances concerning carbohydrate metabolism, namely in the diabetic disease (Ferner, 1942, 1951). It was therefore of particular interest to investigate first whether this pancreatic factor can act in the experimental animal as a hyperglycemia and glycosuria inducing factor and secondly, whether it can potentiate the effects on carbohydrate metabolism of other known diabetogenic preparations.Since in previous unpublished experiments neither a consistent glycosuria nor a lasting hyperglycemia were obtained giving glucagon to intact and partially depancreatized rats fed a standard diet ad libitum, it was decided