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

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The third important toxin-destroying organ is the thyroid gland, which, as shown by the experiments of Dr. Leo Breisacher,^[26] of Detroit, formerly assistant to Professor Munk, of Berlin, and of Dr. F. Blum,^[27] of Frankfort, as well as Dr. Chalmers Watson,^[28] of Edinburgh, destroys those poisonous substances produced by the decomposition of proteid food. Moreover, Sajous has shown that this is a prominent function of the pituitary body, the thyroid and the adrenals, acting jointly as the “adrenal system.”

It will be evident that these various glands can only do their work to perfection so long as their parenchymatous tissue is not replaced to any large extent by connective tissue. Of these glands the thyroid takes the foremost rank, as it governs the other glands. As we have shown in a communication to the French Congress of Medicine, in Liège, 1905, the thyroid influences the liver, and in a paper before the Paris Biological Society, February 25, 1907, we have shown that the thyroid also influences the kidneys. In fact, the liver and kidneys are closely allied to the thyroid, and when this organ is degenerated, the other two glands follow suit.