Thymus gland

“ Some of the glands of internal secretion act as accelerators to the sex glands. Others act as retarding antagonists. Among the most important of the latter is
THE THYMUS The thymus is the gland which dominates childhood. It appears to do so by inhibiting the activity of the testes or ovaries. Castration causes a persistent growth and retarded atrophy of the thymus. Removal of the thymus hastens the development of the gonads. ”

“ But now volumes have been written in America on the subject of the thymus gland. I am not claiming any special knowledge of these things. What I am trying to say is that the feelings felt at the thymus are quite different from the feelings induced by thoughts.
Sex has to be put in its proper place as one of the natural functionings of the body. It is solely, mainly and wholly for the purpose of reproducing or procreating something like this [the body] . It has no other place in the functioning of the body. ”

“ They all center around what I call the "deadly triangle," comprised of a weak thymus gland, weak spleen, and a weak liver. The thymus and spleen form the core of the body's immune system. The weak liver contributes to a highly toxic system that further weakens the immune system. To top it off, people with cancer invariably have a poor ability to digest cooked protein (animal or vegetable) (usually from a weak pancreas unable to make enough digestive enzymes) and eat too much of it, giving them a very toxic colon, and an overloaded lymphatic system. ”

“ Oscar Riddle, while admitting that the thymus gland in man has some influence on the growth of the bones, contends that the newly-discovered function of this gland in birds is much more important, since without it none of the vertebrates, excepting mammals, could reproduce their young. ”

“ Scattered instances have been reported of children growing, putting on inches in height and expanding mentally, when thymus was fed to them, in whom every other measure previously tried had failed. A French study of over four hundred idiotic children with normal thyroids reported that over three fourths had no thymus at all. Everything points to the most direct and close relation between the gland and nutrition and growth, but with nothing tangibly definite like our knowledge of the thyroid and the pituitary. ”

“ Rest in bed while the glands are enlarged, and cod-liver oil and iron to meet the anaemia, are the usual treatment.
Status lymphaticus (lymphatism) is a condition found in children and some adults, characterized by an enlargement of the lymphoid tissues throughout the body and more particularly by enlargement of the thymus gland. There is a special lowering of the patient’s powers of resistance, and it has been said to account for a number of cases of sudden death. In all cases of status lymphaticus the thymus has been found enlarged. ”

“ A very large three-lobed thymus gland lies above the heart. Only a rudiment of this exists in the adult. The heart is large, and situated on the median line. Its position changes somewhat as it grows older. The lungs are equal in size. Curiously, the œsophagus enters the stomach near its pyloric end. A very large gland lies on the cardiac end of the stomach. Prof. Owen, speaking of the character of the stomach in marsupials, says: "The stomach is simple in the genera Didelphys, Myrmecobius, and Parameles, and likewise simple in Dasyurus and Phalangista ”

“ It lies at the side of the trachea (4) , dorsad of the lateral margin of the sternohyoid muscle. Its cranial end is at the level of the caudal border of the cricoid cartilage. The isthmus (7) is a delicate band two millimeters wide which connects the caudal ends of the two lateral lobes. It passes ventrad of the trachea and in close contact with it. The thyroid has no duct.
The Thymus Gland. Glandula thymus (Fig. 107, d) .—The thymus gland is best developed in young kittens; in the adult cat it has partly or almost completely degenerated. ”

“ If the surgeon accepts the view that a persistent thymus is responsible for a fatal outcome, although no positive evidence is at hand, he must determine whether this gland be present before resorting to resection of the struma ”

“ Müller’s Fluid.—Bichromate of potash 30 grains, sulphate of soda 15 grains, distilled water 31⁄2 ounces. This hardens in from three to six weeks. Then transfer, as before, to methylated spirits, and change it every day until colour ceases to appear. Most suitable for lymphatic glands, eye-ball and its internal structures, as well as for tendons, and thymus gland.
Methylated Spirit may be generally employed, but it has a tendency to shrink some tissues too much; it hardens in about ten days. It is usual to change the spirit daily, for the first three days at least. ”

“ Certain tumors of the thymus, presumably destructive of the gland substance proper, and thus cutting off its secretion, are accompanied by a singular muscle weakness and atrophy of the muscle cells, entirely out of proportion to the general damage suffered by the other cells of the body when affected by the poison of a malignant growth. Also, the thymus has been discovered diseased in certain mysterious progressive muscular wastings. A remarkable fatigability of muscles, which appears after the slightest exertion, is a feature. ”

“ The thyroid belongs to the class of glands known as ductless—that is, there is no canal or duct by which the secretions of the gland are carried out. Its function, like the function of the other ductless glands (the spleen, the thymus, and the adrenal bodies) , is but imperfectly understood. ”

“ The thymus gland was persistent (7×5×.5 cm.) , whereas the thyroid gland was smaller than usual. The brain showed macroscopic and microscopic features entirely consistent with the diagnosis of general paresis, including lymphocytosis, plasmocytosis, irregular degrees of 281nerve cell destruction, and gliosis, with an especially characteristic microscopic picture in the frontal regions.
It may be of note to consider the degree of change undergone by a brain in 11 years or more of deterioration, and the following description of the head findings is therefore included:
Head: Hair abundant, dark. ”

“ Moreover, the gland is influenced by and influences the factors of body weight and growth with an extreme readiness and lability. Deficient general undernutrition leads to rapid decline in its weight. Back in 1858, the pioneer student of the thymus, Friedleben, declared that the size and condition of the thymus is an index to be the state of nutrition of the body. Underfeeding for four weeks will reduce it to one thirtieth the normal. It seems to act as a storage and reserve organ, affording some protection against the limitation of growth by lack of food material. ”

“ Sexual precocity in boys may be produced by a premature overactivity not only of the specific reproductive organs: the testes, but also by an early excess of secretion on the part of the cortex of the adrenal gland or the pituitary gland, or by a too early involution of the pineal or thymus. When such abnormalities of adrenal, pituitary, thymus or pineal occur in girls, it is the masculine streak in the hastening of growth that is made manifest. ”

“ Moreover, the action of the thyroid gland has been made known, and the facts of “internal secretion” have been in part elucidated. (Claude Bernard, speaking of the thyroid, the thymus and the supra renal capsules, said: “We know absolutely nothing about the functions of these organs; we have not so much as an idea what use and importance they may possess, because experiments have told us nothing about them, and anatomy, left to itself, is absolutely silent on the subject.”) ”

“ Such a baby is said to be born blue, and the breathing may be stridorous for days, becoming normal for a time, to be followed later by spells of trouble in breathing, breathlessness or breathlessness with blueness, and threatened extinction. Sometimes these spells come out of a clear sky in an apparently healthy child. That some poison, probably an oversecretion of the thymus, is responsible is shown by the relief obtainable by X-ray shrinkage of the gland, or the surgical removal of a part of it. ”

“ No one can deny, in the face of the multitude of evidence available, that internal secretion disturbances occur in the mother, which, when grave, offer in the infant gross proof of their significance, and therefore when slight must more subtly work upon it. Endocrine disturbances in infancy have been traced to endocrine disturbances in the mother during pregnancy. Pregnant animals fed on thyroid give birth to young with large thymus glands. The diet of the mother has been proved conclusively to influence the development and constitution of the child. ”

“ If what he thinks to be serial homologues of the pronephric tubules in the branchial region should prove to be the origin of the thymus glands of Schaffer, then van Wijhe's suggestion that the thymus represents the excretory organs of the branchial region would gain enormously in probability. Until some such further investigation has been undertaken, I can only say that it seems to me most likely that the thymus, etc., represent the lymphatic branchial glands of the Crustacea, and therefore represent the missing coxal glands of the branchial region. ”

“ In some of the lower mammals the gland does not disappear as early as it does in man. The thymus of the calf is popularly known as “the chest sweetbread.”
Carotid Bodies
These are two small bodies situated, one on each side, between the origins of the external and internal carotid arteries. Microscopically they are divided into nodules or cell balls by connective tissue, and these closely resemble the structure of the parathyroids, but are without any thymic tissue. The blood-vessels in their interior are extremely large and numerous. ”

“ The importance ascribed by Beard to the thymus in the formation of leucocytes in the lowest vertebrates would be considerably reduced in value if the branchial region of Ammocœtes possessed neither thymus glands nor anything equivalent to them. Such, however, is not the case. Schaffer has shown that in the young Ammocœtes masses of lymphatic glandular tissue are found segmentally arranged in the neighbourhood of each gill-slit—tissue which soon becomes converted into a swarming mass of leucocytes, and shows by its staining, etc., how different it is from a blood-space. ”

“ Later, the epithelial mass thus formed becomes invaded by connective tissue, and by leucocytes which form lymph follicles, and the thymus gradually assumes the structure of a lymphoid organ. From its mode of development it has been suggested that the thymus owes its evolution to the metamorphosis and ingrowth of branchial filaments, [402] but it is also noteworthy that each embryonic rudiment of the organ closely resembles, both in position and origin, one of the developing branchial tongue-bars of Amphioxus. ”

“ With so much against them, physical inferiorities, mental defects, moral lacks of every sort, it is little wonder that the thymo-centrics die young. Infections hit them badly. The cases of flu that went off in twenty-four hours belonged to the type. Fulminant meningitis, pneumonia, diphtheria, scarlet fever, the varieties that are supposed to kill in twenty-four to forty-eight hours because of the terrible virulence of the attacking microbe, are probably so malignant only because the organism attacked is a thymus subject. ”

“ THE THYMO-CENTRIC PERSONALITIES During the first period of childhood, up to five, six or seven, or more accurately, up to the point at which the permanent teeth begin to appear, every child may be said to be a thymus-dominated organism, because the thymus, holding the other endocrines in check, controls its life. ”

“ There is a definite degree of thymus activity during everyone's childhood, unless by its premature involution, precocity displaces juvenility. Yet even during childhood, there are certain individuals with excessive thymus action, foreshadowing a continued thymus predominance throughout life. The "angel child" is the type: regularly proportioned and perfectly made, like a fine piece of sculpture, with delicately chiselled features, transparent skin changing color easily, long silky hair, with an exceptional grace of movement and an alertness of mind. ”

“ As differentiation and bulk thus appear antagonistic, at least at the beginning of growth, the function of the thymus, at a maximum during infancy, seems then to be to restrain the differentiating endocrines, until sufficient material has been accumulated by the organism upon which the differentiating process may work. ”

“ A thymus is probably present in all Fishes, if not in the adult at all events in the embryo, but is always relatively small in size. In Elasmobranchs the organ lies on each side above the branchial arches and beneath the dorsal musculature; and in Teleostomi at the dorsal extremity of the last branchial arch, in close proximity to the mucous membrane of the branchial cavity. ”

“ The vascular supply is derived from all the vessels in the neighbourhood, the lymphatics are very large and numerous, but the nerves, which come from the sympathetic and vagus, are few and small. H. Watney (Phil. Trans., 1882) has discovered haemoglobin, and apparently developing red blood corpuscles, in the thymus. (For further details see Gray’s or Quain’s Anatomy.)
Embryology.—The thymus is formed from a diverticulum, on each side, from the entoderm lining the third branchial groove, but the connexion with the pharynx is soon lost. ”

“ Enlargement of the glands of the neck and of the groin, with some enlargement of the tonsils, occurs in delicate children without necessarily being symptoms of the lymphatic diathesis. The enlargement or persistence of the thymus can be better recognised, and doctors now seldom fail to notice it. Where any suspicion of such a condition exists in children of from eight to sixteen or seventeen years of age, proper precautions must be taken to prevent sudden fatal termination of any even mild disease without due preparation. ”