Thou knowest not... how the bones do grow in the womb of her who is with child.—Eccles. xi:5.
Introduction
Details of the biochemistry of purified mammalian pituitary growth hormone and many of its physiologic and therapeutic actions in experimental animals are a matter of record. However, as Gaunt1 put it in 1954, "We are sadly lacking in information concerning the different rates of secretion of this and related hormones at different times of the life span." The same problem was stated by C. N. H. Long2 in 1955, when he said: "The central problem of anterior lobe physiology [is] what regulates the secretion of growth hormone. Is the growth of a rat or man, from birth to... adulthood, accompanied first by an increased proportion of growth hormone in the secretion of the anterior lobe, followed by a decline in later years; or is... endocrine control of growth merely