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

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Flatulency and distention of the bowels are very frequently met with in women with diseased thyroids or ovaries, and are due to an irritated condition of the nerves of the intestines.

When examining the nervous system we must inquire for headaches, especially in the occipital region, migraines, and the previous occurrence of neuralgia, these being very frequent symptoms in persons with athyroidia or hypothyroidia. Most characteristic are alterations in the mental condition. Thus, memory for recent events may be gone. There may be apathy, with hesitation before every movement, such persons disliking to move about. They may sit indefinitely in the same position. As already mentioned in the chapter on the influences of the ductless glands upon the nervous system such people are frequently somnolent. Therefore we must inquire about the hours of sleep. Besides sleeping long, such persons are apt to awake in the night after dreams of a terrifying nature. Our diagnosis of a condition of athyroidia or hypothyroidia has often been helped, by inquiring whether such persons have seen little animals (rats or mice) creeping through the room while sitting quiet, or before going to sleep. Such a symptom has been described by Murray,^[121] in his book on myxœdema, in the early stages of this disease; the mind being then so much altered that even manias of persecution and suicide may arise.