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

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partial form of that rare disease. We can also easily show that changes in the thyroid are followed by changes in the condition of the skin. Thus, with thyroid degenerations, as in myxœdema, the skin is pale with a yellowish tinge. In Graves’s disease pigmentation of the skin can often be observed, and not rarely cutaneous eruptions.

In affections of the sexual organs in woman similar conditions of the skin can occur. Such persons often present wrinkles at a very early age, and certainly look older than their years. Infants suffering from congenital degeneration of the thyroid gland often look withered and present a face as wrinkled as a sexagenarian. We see this also in congenital syphilis (atrophy of the thyroid).

The hair also very often shows alterations in diseases of the thyroid, or ovaries. Thus, in myxœdema there is an atrophy of the follicles of the hair, which falls out, even in the case of the eye-brows.

It is particularly interesting that, by thyroid medication, a new growth of hair has been observed in places where it had fallen out years previously, as we have observed, with other authors, in several cases after thyroid medication. And, very strange to say, this newly-grown hair was quite dark while the hair that had previously been in its place was gray in color. It has been authentically stated by several authorities that old persons of sixty or seventy have acquired black hair under thyroid treatment.