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

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It must be remembered that all the glands with internal secretions, according to Pineles,^[6] Sajous,^[7] and the researches of the author, stand in very close relation to one another. Thus, degeneration of the thyroid is followed by that of the pituitary body. This was shown by the experiments of Hofmeister,^[8] Stieda,^[9] Rogowitsch,^[10] Benda, and many others. Degeneration of the pituitary is followed by a similar lesion in the thyroid.

Arteriosclerosis is a condition very frequently met with in elderly persons, and, according to recent researches, this disease is caused by a toxic agent with subsequent degeneration of the walls of the blood-vessels. Such a change can be produced artificially, as shown by Josué,^[11] by injecting adrenal extract into rabbits.

That the ductless glands are closely related holds good also for the thyroid and adrenals. This relation, however, is an antagonistic one. The adrenals increase the blood-pressure (Oliver and Schäfer^[12]), and the thyroid diminishes it. It is an interesting fact, demonstrated by Professor Eiselsberg^[13] in Vienna, that extirpation of the thyroid gland of dogs results in atheroma of the aorta. In connection with this we also mention the clinical fact, that all those agencies which are harmful to the thyroid gland, as syphilis, abundant meat food (Breisacher,^[14], Blum,^[15] Lorand^[16]), alcohol (Hertoghe and de Quervain^[17]), and tobacco (Hertoghe), are also those which are commonly considered to be the causes of high tension and arteriosclerosis. Infectious diseases are also brought in etiological relationship with arteriosclerosis, and it has been shown by a series of authors, that in infectious diseases the thyroid undergoes important alterations which may involve its degeneration (Roger and Garnier, Crispino, Torri, Bayon, de Quervain).