ABSTRACT
The adrenal glands were first recognized as distinct organs by Bartolomeus Eustachius in 1563 [1]. Almost 300 years later, Thomas Addison, working at Guy’s Hospital in London, described for the first time the signs and symptoms of a disease correlated to histological alterations in the suprarenal capsules, characterized by ‘‘anemia, general languor and debility, remarkable feebleness of the heart’s action, irritability of the stomach and a peculiar change of color of the skin’’ [2]. Following the postmortem examination of 11 patients, Addison found 6 cases with adrenal tuberculosis, 3 cases of adrenal malignancies, 1 case of adrenal hemorrhage, and 1 case of adrenal fibrosis of an unknown origin. Subsequently, Brown-Sequard demonstrated that, in animals, bilateral adrenalectomy induces death [3]. Following these reports, in 1856 Trousseau referred to adrenocortical insufficiency as Addison’s disease (AD) [4]. Many years later it was discovered that adrenal function is regulated by the pituitary gland [5] and that the hypothalamus regulates pituitary function [6]. Between 1920 and 1930, adrenocortical extracts were obtained from adrenal glands [7-9], and their use made possible the survival of both adrenalectomized animals and patients with AD [7,10]. In 1937, both corticosterone and deoxycorticosterone were synthesized [11,12], but it was only in 1938 that they were employed in the treatment of AD in humans [13].
