88 THE INTERNAL SECRETIONS—1920 
We have been speaking heretofore of the anatomical 
changes caused by typhoid bacilli. We shall try now 
to discuss the influence of thyroid preparations upon 
the serological processes that take place in the body. 
Here we may expect to find out additional facts, as the 
case of syphilis. Syphilis, at first, is a local infection 
which later becomes general. Typhoid fever, on the 
other hand, is a general infection, as is proved by the 
findings of bacilli in the blood during the first few 
days, which later becomes localized. There exist even 
(extremely rare) cases of sepsis by typhoid bacilli 
without localization (Bonn, 54). The organism de- 
fends itself through the production of agglutinins, and 
these may be detected in the blood from the second 
week of the diseases. There is not much literature 
about the influence of thyroid administration on the 
formation of agglutinins. Fjeldstead (18), immunized 
rabbits against typhoid bacilli and did not find any 
difference between normal animals and animals after 
extirpation of the thyroid. Borchardt (55), found that 
most endocrine organs (pituitary, adrenals, thyroid) 
raise the agglutinin titer in a very marked way. 
My own experiments give results similar to Bor- 
chardt. The first experiment was performed on two 
guinea pigs (with two others serving as a control). 
The first guinea pig was injected with a small quantity 
of living typhoid bacilli (10 millions). The strain was 
very pathogenic, as the animal died in 18 hours (at post 
mortem I found all the symptoms of an acute sepsis). 
The control animal received the same dose of bacilli 
and also 10 milligrams of an extract of thyroid. This 
last one is still alive and never did develop any symptom 
of disease. 
Another experiment had the same result. One 
guinea pig got 5,000,000 typhoid bacilli; the other the 
same quantity and 10 milligrams of thyroid extract. 
This strain did not seem to be so virulent. The first 
