Thyroid

“ Thyroid internal secretion has a very definite controlling relation to all of them: to skin, its hairiness, moisture and amount of mucus, to the growth and size of the bones, especially the bones of the extremities and the skull, and to intelligence and the complexity of the convolutions of the brain. Injury to the thyroid, especially in growing animals, is followed by profound retrogression or arrest of development in skin, skeleton and brain. ”

“ It seems to follow from these observations that persons with a good sound thyroid have a better chance in fighting infections and intoxications than persons with a degenerated thyroid. In persons with an active thyroid, an increased activity of the gland, and thus a better functioning of the eliminative organs which are governed by it, can take place more easily than in persons with a degenerated thyroid, and, in consequence, with a dry skin, constipated bowels, and lazy kidneys. ”

“ EFFECTS OF FEEDING THYROID How subtly the internal secretion affects every phase and aspect of child as well as adult, by doing something to the speed of activities in their cells, is told straightway by the effects of it when eaten or introduced into the skin or blood of various people. A cretin, idiotic, dwarfish, deformed, hopeless, an incessantly prodding burden of sorrow to the mother, who looks upon the masterpiece she had labored to bring forth, and beholds a terrible gargoyle, becomes transformed when fed thyroid. ”

“ By treating with thyroid extracts a child that has remained backward in his mental development we can make a curious observation. The child who had previously been a cretinous idiot will not only improve bodily but also mentally, and he will be transformed into an intelligent being with normal mental faculties. The logical deduction is that the thyroid must influence powerfully the condition of our nervous system and mentality. Indeed, the physiological activity of the nervous system and mentality depends entirely on the co-operation of the ductless glands with internal secretion. ”

“ Occasionally a child is born without an active thyroid gland; this child is doomed for life, unless artificial aid can be procured, not only to complete idiocy but to all the other results of lowered metabolism; these show themselves in dwarfishness and a misshapen body. One of the conspicuous and beneficent discoveries of medicine in comparatively recent years has been that extracts of the thyroid glands of meat animals, when eaten by persons whose own thyroids are not sufficiently active, supply the lack, and so they may be restored to the normal condition. ”

“ When thyroid is taken in an irrational way in large doses, or when continued for too long a time, we may sometimes have the very opposite symptoms for a time—even more fat, and in some cases older looks; but if we abandon the treatment for two or three weeks we may witness, as we ourselves have done, a general improvement in the condition and personal appearance; after iodide treatment we may observe the same, sometimes with increase of fat. Thyroid extracts cause a greater activity of the thyroid, and at times even an overactivity—thyroidism—which may be followed by its exhaustion. ”

“ The influence of the thyroid upon the skeleton and size of the body is easily shown by simple observations.
Children of parents with cachectic diseases like chronic tuberculosis, syphilis, alcoholism, etc., in which the thyroid gland is, as a rule, found degenerated (Gamier, [31] Hertoghe [32] ) , are (as shown by Prof. Perrando [33] and Garnier) born with a congenital atrophy of the thyroid. Just as young animals with an extirpated 14thyroid, so these children will not grow, and we know that cretins (degeneration of the thyroid) remain as a rule dwarfs all their life long. ”

“ This feat is now accomplished successfully by our most skillful surgeons, and the result has been the restoring to health and happiness of large numbers of people whose lives were rendered miserable through no fault of their own, but because their thyroid glands had become unduly active. We do not know how the thyroid gland itself is controlled; there is evidently something which causes it in the vast majority of us to produce its hormone at the rate which keeps the metabolism steady at what we look upon as the level of health. Deficient thyroid is, at least in some cases, hereditary. ”

“ The thyroid activates the fires of the body. An active thyroid means life at "concert pitch." A sluggish thyroid means a slow, negative existence.
To a poor thyroid correspond a pasty complexion, watery eyes with heavy lids, a depressed pug nose, large ears, thin hair, scanty eyebrows and eyelashes, short, brittle nails, irregular, bad teeth, broad, pudgy hands and feet, generally cold. ”

“ Thyroid gland was introduced for the treatment of patients suffering from goitre, myxoedema and cretinism, in which diseases it has been remarkably successful, cretins growing rapidly under the thyroid treatment and developing intelligence. It has also been used in dwarfism, excessive obesity, psoriasis and scleroderma. When used in obesity an excess of nitrogenous food should be taken to balance the destruction of proteid. ”

“ There is first that ubiquitous agent in the system, the thyroid. Chemical analysis of it has shown that the iodine content decreases with the age of the individual, and becomes specially low after forty. It is after the menopause in women that myxedema, the disease of complete degeneration of the thyroid, and of the physical and mental faculties, is most frequent. The thyroid of old people exhibits, in varying degrees, signs of a similar degeneration. Thyroid feeding, properly controlled, will clear up certain of the deteriorations of mind and body observable in the aged. ”

“ The thyroid probably performs these functions by sending its secretion to the cells directly responsible for the immunity reactions, and stimulating them to activity.
A sketch of the thyroid like the foregoing shows it as the wondrous controller of vitality and growth, and indefatigable protector against intoxicants and injuries. When it is sufficiently active, life is worth while; when it is defective, life is a difficult threatening blackness. That would make it out as the gland of glands. It is tremendously important, without a doubt, in normal everyday life. ”

“ That is not to imply any direct proportion between the amount of thyroid secretion in an individual, and the length of life to which he is destined. The speed of living, in the chemical sense (which is the fundamental sense) , and the rate at which the chemical reactions go on that constitute the process of life, are dependent upon the thyroid. When the reactions go faster, more oxygen and food material are burned up or oxidized, more energy is liberated, the metabolic wheel rotates more quickly, the individual senses, feels, thinks and acts more quickly. ”

“ When the Thyroid was discontinued the catalepsy grew worse, the exophthalmic goitre better; when resumed the catalepsy better, the exophthalmic goitre worse.
A patient, while under Thyroid treatment for myxœdema, took, through a misunderstanding, in eleven days nearly 3 ounces of the dessicated Thyroid, whereupon tachycardia, pyrexia, insomnia, tremor of the limbs, polyuria, albuminuria, and glucosuria, in short, a disease similar to exophthalmic goitre developed.
Thyroid has been used with benefit in the following diseases:
1. Arrested development in children, cretinism, idiotism. ”

“ If this influence causes stimulation of both the brain and the thyroid, its excessive action may cause impairment of the brain and also hyperplasia of the thyroid. As self-control is impaired, fear obtains an ascendency and, pari passu, stimulates the thyroid still more actively (Fig. 16) . Finally, the fear of the disease itself becomes a noci-stimulus. As the thyroid secretion causes an increase in the facility with which nervous energy is discharged, a pathologic reciprocal interaction is established between the brain and the thyroid. ”

“ We purposely side-track the worn-out thyroid of sclerosis and senility, and, by thyroid feeding, restore to a great extent the whole endocrine harmony, thus giving a new tone and stimulus to existence. We shall have to use more or less thyroid feeding for the remainder of life, but we must show our patients that it is not a medicine but a necessary food. As in myxœdema, so in sclerosis, thyroid feeding is the only means, as yet known, of producing absorption of those thickenings that characterize both diseases. ”

“ So with loss or insufficiency of the thyroid, there may be pituitary overgrowth, because the pituitary may act as vicar for the thyroid. The thyroid and thymus are antagonistic, for the thyroid hastens differentiation, puberty and the coming of sexual maturity, while the thymus delays and retards them and prolongs the period of childhood. The thyroid and the pancreas are antagonists, for when the thyroid has been excised, the pancreas appear no longer necessary to act as a break upon the mechanism of sugar liberation into the blood from the liver. ”

“ The thyroid dominant, whose system is rich in thyroid, will rarely suffer from any of the common diseases of children—if at all, from measles. Op the other hand, those who have every infection of the period, and who, as their mothers say, seem to get everything, are those whose system is thyroid poor. Thyroid poverty is a splendid enticement to the universal microbe. The thymocentric stands all diseases poorly. The pituitary type is more liable to epidemic meningitis and infantile paralysis, typhoid and scarlet fever. ”

“ In nature every cause has a sequel. Therefore, when we see such important changes in glands with internal secretions, there logically must be sequels to the alterations in these important organs. And these exist. When the thyroid is degenerated, to a greater or less extent all those symptoms appear which are characteristic of changes in the functions governed by the thyroid, and of which we have spoken in previous chapters.
Therefore, when the thyroid is degenerated, symptoms appear which are characteristic of myxœdema. ”

“ In this fight, a person with healthy ductless glands will always attain a longer life than one with ductless glands of inferior quality. The better the condition of the thyroid the greater will be the activity of those organs that are under its direct command (e.g., the kidneys, liver, skin, and intestines) , and by the increased activity of the main emunctories of the body poisonous products will be eliminated by means of a greater flow of urine, an abundant perspiration, and thorough purging. ”

“ CRETINISM AS THYROID DEFICIENCY Not that there is any arresting contrast of startling difference between the phenomena presented by different species. The younger the animal, the grosser the morbid symptoms witnessed. The animal fails to grow. The bones and cartilage, except of the skull, fail to develop. The abdomen projects and becomes large and flabby. The sex organs atrophy. There is sterility. Pregnant rabbits abort, hens produce very small eggs or none at all. These are the results of removing the thyroid in animals. ”

“ The thyroid bears more directly upon the inner and outer coverings of the body, the skin, the skin glands and the hair, the mucous membranes, and the irritability and the preparedness for response of the nerves. The pituitary acts more upon the framework of the body, the skeleton and the mechanical supports and movers. Bone and ligament, muscle and tendon seem to be within its immediate sway. The secretion or secretions of the pituitary diffuse directly into the fluid bathing the nervous system, supplying beneficent stimulants and aiding in the abstraction of harmful waste. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For such, so to say, physiological purposes as we are required to give them, thyroid extracts should be administered in a quantity just sufficient to make up the amount of thyroid secretion which the body demands; the greater the age, the larger the dose; but we must not forget that, as in advanced cases of myxœdema, so also in advanced senility, we must not expect too great results from the treatment. ”

“ That the thyroid gland affects the intellect is also proved by the very important fact that the serum of animals whose thyroid has been extirpated, and which is thus antagonistic to the thyroid gland, is able to impair the intellect. ”

“ Thus it supplies a mechanism not only for quantity output of that subtle reality we label energy, but also an apparatus for varying the available amount of it, and for permitting the maximum range in ease and rapidity of its utilization. The thyroid is still another device of life for procuring more and more variation and differentiation, its goal, as far as we can peer through the opalescent screen upon which its manifestations quiver. ”

“ The Thyroid, especially if used continually or in large doses, causes the following symptoms:
1. Elevation of the temperature.
2. Increase of the heart's action and of the frequency and volume of the pulse, which, however, is more compressible. Walking, even standing, after taking a dose is apt to cause a feeling of faintness and even complete syncope. The heart may become so weak that it cannot endure any overexertion without danger, even death may result.
3. Shortness of breath.
4. Increase or decrease of appetite, sometimes nausea, less frequently vomiting, still less diarrhœa. ”