142 REVIEW OF RECENT RESEARCHES 



athyreosis, as was once supposed, but with a 

 dysthyreosis. 



The symptoms in Basedow's disease are of par- 

 ticular interest. Here we find decomposition of the 

 thymus gland, of the thyroid gland, and very often 

 of the ovary, as has been established by Lampe, 

 Papazolu, and Fuchs, on the basis of a large amount 

 of material. No other organ was decomposed. It 

 is interesting to note, that normal thyroid gland was 

 decomposed only in very exceptional cases, while 

 Basedow thyroids were always attacked. 



This observation points to -two possibilities in 

 regard to the production of substances out of harmony 

 with the plasma. Sometimes the normally con- 

 structed cell is incapable of completing the otherwise 

 normal decomposition of particular substances, so 

 that materials appear in the blood which still show 

 the characteristic features of the cell, from which they 

 originated. The decomposition is discontinued at a 

 particular stage. A certain analogy with this kind 

 of disturbance of cellular metabolism is presented by 

 those anomalous cases, in which simpler products 

 are not fully reduced. We may refer to cystinuria, 

 alkaptonuria, pentosuria, &c. In the first case cystin, 

 in alkaptonuria, homogentisic acid, and in the last 

 case a pentose, are excreted in the urine. Some 

 forms of glycosuria also belong here. The cells are 

 unable to attack the grape sugar, because no active 



