Читать книгу Old Age Deferred. The causes of old age and its postponement by hygienic and therapeutic measures онлайн

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We have seen in the first chapter of this book that we may find the symptoms of old age, in quite early years, in persons whose ductless glands (the thyroid, ovaries, testicles, liver, kidneys, pancreas, adrenals, pituitary body) are degenerated by disease; nervous affections; alterations of the mind: grief, sorrow, etc.; chronic infections; numerous pregnancies, etc., or by faulty hygienics: excesses in food, alcohol, sexual pleasures, etc. We have also seen in the third chapter that the immunity of an individual against infections—be it by bacterial invasion or by poisonous food or drugs, etc.—is dependent upon the correct functionating condition of these glands. We have seen that those in whom these glands are degenerated fall easy victims to all manner of infections, and the previous chapter on heredity shows that the same happens to children, the offspring of parents suffering from alcoholism, tuberculosis, or malaria, as the children of these parents are born with a congenital degeneration of the thyroid, and thus remain backward in growth, both mentally and physically, and, especially, fall easy victims to tuberculosis. Their life is generally short. While such a sad cloud hangs over the head of persons whose glands are damaged, either congenitally or by disease, much more favorable is the lot of those who have inherited healthy glands and by careful living have preserved them intact, or who, though born with ductless glands not entirely normal, and possibly bordering on a condition of congenital myxœdema, have, by suitable treatment and hygiene, succeeded in improving the condition of their glands.