DUCTLESS GLANDS 95 



function had been allotted. The discovery of the glycogenic function of the liver 

 struck a heavy blow at the whole theory of functions. 



No less pregnant of future discoveries was the idea suggested by this newly 

 found out action of the hepatic tissue, the idea happily formulated by Bernard 

 as "internal secretion." No part of physiology is at the present day being more 

 fruitfully studied than that which deals with the changes which the blood under- 

 goes as it sweeps through the several tissues, changes by the careful adaptation 

 of which what we call the health of the body is secured, changes the failure or 

 discordance of which entails disease. The study of these internal secretions con- 

 stitutes a path of inquiry which has already been trod with conspicuous success 

 and which promises to lead to untold discoveries of the greatest moment; the 

 gate to this path was opened by Bernard's work.ia 



In 1856, one year before Claude Bernard obtained glycogen in the 

 pure state, the doctrine of internal secretions was put upon a firmer 

 basis through the important experiments of Brown- Sequard and Moritz 

 Schiff. Only a year after the publication of Addison's great mono- 

 graph on suprarenal disease, Brown-Sequard succeeded in producing an 

 exaggerated form of Addison's disease in different animals by removal 

 of the suprarenal capsules, the symptoms being the same and the result 

 of the experiment being rapidly and invariably fatal.^" If only one 

 capsule were removed, there was no appreciable change in the normal 

 animal, but death would rapidly supervene upon removal, even after a 

 long interval of time, of the other capsule. Furthermore, Brown- 

 Sequard found that a transfusion of normal blood into the veins of an 

 animal deprived of its suprarenal capsules will prevent its death for a 

 considerable time, indicating that the normal suprarenal capsules 

 secrete a material which is necessary for the maintenance of life. In 

 the same year (1856), Moritz Schiff,-^ of Frankfort on the Main, found 

 that excision of the thyroid gland in dogs is invariably fatal. His 

 results were forgotten for over twenty-five 5'ears, when, following the 

 description of myxcedema by Gull (1873) and Ord (1878) and the first 

 excision of the thyroid gland for goitre by the Swiss surgeon, Theodor 

 Kocher (1878), J. L. Eeverdin of Geneva showed that an "operative 

 myxcedema" is produced in man by complete excision of the thyroid 

 (1882). This was confirmed by Kocher, who found that total 

 thyroidectomy is followed by a " cachexia strumipriva " or " cachexia 

 thyreopriva." Hereupon Schiff returned to the charge and, in 1884, 

 published the results of 60 thyroidectomies in dogs, all fatal, with such 

 significant symptoms as tremor, spasms and convulsions. What is 

 more to the purpose, Schiff demonstrated that th&se symptoms could be 

 prevented by a previous graft of a portion of the thyroid gland beneath 

 the skin or into the peritoneal cavity of the animal, or by the injection 

 of thyroid juice into a vein or under the skin, or by the ingestion of 

 thyroid juice or raw thyroid by the mouth. This led in time to the 

 remarkably successful treatment of myxcedema by means of thyroid 



"Sir Michael Foster, " Claude Bernard," London, 1899, 89-90. 



29 Brown-Sequard, Compt.-rend. Acad. d. Sc, Paris, 1856. XLIII., 422; 542. 



21 Schiff, " Imparziale, " Florence, 1863, 234-237. 



