In time of extreme excitement or emergency, an 

 increase of thyroxin in the blood makes possible 

 an exceptional output of energy. When thyroxin 

 is continuously present in excess, the alarmed 

 look and high tension indicate a disproportionate 

 discharge of energy, with the danger of ex- 

 haustion 



EXOPHTHALMIC GOITER^ 



A significant clue to the ductless glands, and especially to the thyroid, 

 was furnished by observations made in England on middle-aged women 

 suffering from myxedema. In this condition of disturbed metabolism pa- 

 tients have cold hands and feet, a bloated appearance, thickened lips and 

 tongue, coarsened skin, a dull feeling, and loss of memory. It had been 

 observed that in such patients the thyroid had shrunk or deteriorated. In 

 1891 a British physician treated one such case with the dried thyroid of 

 sheep. He restored his patient and kept her alive and in normal health for 

 twenty-eight years, until she died at the age of seventy-four. 



Hormones and the Release of Energy In the cylinders of a gas-engine 

 the energy-releasing explosion of the fuel-oxygen mixture is set of? by a 

 spark. In the protoplasm of a mammal's body the oxidation of sugar or 

 other fuel depends upon the hormone insulin. This hormone was extracted 

 from the pancreas by two Canadian scientists, Frederick Grant Banting 

 (1891-1941) and Charles H. Best (1899- ). The men were following up 

 a thirty-year-old clue from Strassburg. There a physician in the hospital 

 noticed that flies were clustering in one pen of dogs being kept for medical 

 experiments, but not in the neighboring pen. Since the pancreas had been 

 removed from some of the dogs, Dr. Naunyn immediately suspected that 

 the treated dogs were suffering from diabetes, — a condition in which there 

 is an excess of sugar in the blood and urine. Through further experiments it 

 was established that this disease is due to defective action of the pancreas — 

 not of the liver, from which the reserve glucose gets into the blood. 



^From The Endocrine Glands, by Max Goldzieher, published by D. Appleton-Century Com- 

 pany, Inc. 



312 



