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

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In the examination of the digestive organs we must pay special attention to the state of the appetite. Very often with a degenerated thyroid this may be wanting. The appetite, as shown by Pawlow, is under the influence of the mind as we will see. With a sad melancholic disposition, as is often found in persons with a degenerated thyroid, there is insufficient or no secretion of gastric juice. Besides, in myxœdematous conditions all glandular secretions are more or less checked. Thus food passes into a stomach with insufficient gastric juice, remains there in stagnation and causes fermentation. The stomach makes vain efforts to drive the food into the intestine. Slowly an atonic condition of the gastric walls arises, and later dilatation of this organ. The fermenting foodstuffs in the stomach set up a chronic intoxication of the organism.

Concerning the condition of the intestines we should consider the chances of long life greater in those persons whose bowels act regularly and who are never constipated. Such persons are able to eliminate toxic products much better than those who are suffering from chronic constipation. The function of the intestines is powerfully influenced by the thyroid gland, chronic constipation being a typical symptom of all conditions in which this gland is degenerated, whereas in the opposite conditions, such as Graves’s disease (exophthalmic goiter), diarrhœa is common. By giving thyroid gland we can treat successfully those obstinate cases of constipation, which are based etiologically on such grounds. Besides the thyroid gland, the ovaries also influence, to a large extent, the intestines, constipation occurring, as a rule, in diseased conditions of the female sexual organs.