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

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The influence of the thyroid upon the skeleton and size of the body is easily shown by simple observations.

Children of parents with cachectic diseases like chronic tuberculosis, syphilis, alcoholism, etc., in which the thyroid gland is, as a rule, found degenerated (Gamier,^[31] Hertoghe^[32]), are (as shown by Prof. Perrando^[33] and Garnier) born with a congenital atrophy of the thyroid. Just as young animals with an extirpated thyroid, so these children will not grow, and we know that cretins (degeneration of the thyroid) remain as a rule dwarfs all their life long. We can now produce in such persons certain and very curious changes by feeding them with thyroid extract, and we can see them, as Hertoghe has shown, grow inch by inch in a short period; their mental faculties improving at the same time in an incredible manner.

The influence of the thyroid upon the skeleton is also shown by the fact, established by Gauthier,^[34] that in a fracture with but little tendency to the formation of a callus, union takes place much more quickly after administration of thyroid extract.