Читать книгу Old Age Deferred. The causes of old age and its postponement by hygienic and therapeutic measures онлайн
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It seems to follow from these observations that persons with a good sound thyroid have a better chance in fighting infections and intoxications than persons with a degenerated thyroid. In persons with an active thyroid, an increased activity of the gland, and thus a better functioning of the eliminative organs which are governed by it, can take place more easily than in persons with a degenerated thyroid, and, in consequence, with a dry skin, constipated bowels, and lazy kidneys. Some hints may be derived from these observations in the interest of prophylaxis and prognosis, and also for the purposes of life insurance.
It seems to us that the conclusion is not unjustified, that fever is a beneficial process of our organism which is produced by an increased activity of the thyroid gland as a reaction against toxic products and poisons in general. The symptoms of fever are the expression of this increased activity, and they are directed toward the elimination of noxious elements. It would be unreasonable to oppose this spontaneous healing tendency of nature by fighting these salutary symptoms, unless there be hyperpyrexia. Fever, as probably disease in general, serves the ends of nature in the interest of our conservation. In addition to the thyroid, the other ductless glands protect us from infections and intoxications. Thus, the pituitary body which Casselli,[73] Guerrini,[74] Torri, and many others found, as a rule, altered through infectious diseases. Torri noticed a hyperplasia of the chromophile cells of the pituitary body, and disappearance of the colloid from the follicles in the majority of cases of pneumonia, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and other infectious diseases. Garnier also noted changes in this gland in chronic tuberculosis. Thaon,[75] in his recent thesis, also found changes in the pituitary body in many cases of various sorts of infectious disease, and, what is most interesting, also in intoxications from intestinal origin. We must conclude with Sajous (1903) that the pituitary body reacts to the effects of infections and intoxications and that these anatomo-pathological alterations of the pituitary also provoke clinical symptoms. Renon[76] and Delille have drawn attention to the fact that the decrease of the blood-pressure, and increase in the number of pulsations, in fever, as also the other symptoms of this condition, such as insomnia, heat, perspiration, etc., are due to the alteration of the pituitary body. When this is active and healthy it augments blood-pressure, according to Oliver and Schäfer,[77] Cyon, Livon, Garnier, Thaon, Hallion, and Carrion, etc. At the same time the pulse is diminished, but when this gland is degenerated the pressure naturally falls and the pulsation goes up.