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

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Sleep is also one of the functions controlled by the thyroid, and as its changes are able to promote senility, we believe it will be well to discuss this more fully in a special chapter (XLIII).

We cannot recall any alteration of the thyroid gland that is not accompanied by nervous symptoms. In Graves’s disease (exaggerated activity of the thyroid) we observe a condition of great nervousness, so much so that, according to some authorities, Graves’s disease may be termed a neurasthenia with tachycardia. There are many women treated for simple hysteria who are, in fact, suffering from a partial form of Graves’s disease with its cardinal symptom: tachycardia. In cases of Graves’s disease we often find conditions of exaltation, even manias, and very frequently, at the very least, great irritability. On the other hand, in myxœdema there is, usually, a condition of melancholia, and it is interesting in this connection, that in a number of cases of melancholia we have found a swelling of the thyroid with a cessation of the menstrual flow; such cases improved after thyroid treatment, particularly when conjoined with treatment by ovarian extracts. In the lunatic asylum of Pontiac, Michigan, some 100 cases of swelling of the thyroid have been traced out of 600 insane inmates, as we heard on the occasion of our visit to our friend, Dr. Edwin S. Sherril, of Detroit, four years ago.