HYPOTHYROIDISM AND HYPERTENSION 149 
comprehensive underlying change in the chemistry of 
the body, and it is proposed in this short paper to direct 
attention to one factor which has not been given the 
attention that its imporance deserves and to connect it 
with the etiology as well as the treatment of functional 
or essential hypertension. 
There have been a number of papers in the literature 
of the last five years calling attention to clinical experi- 
ences with the use of thyroid extract and other organ 
extracts as a means of reducing high blood pressure. 
A number of reports, including that of Cummings of 
Los Angeles? and Bandler of New York,* speak highly 
of thyroid therapy as a means of modifying an exces- 
sive arterial tension. As far back as twenty years ago, 
before sphygmomanometry was developed, Eugene 
Hertoghe of Antwerp’ called attention to the changes 
wrought upon the pulse rate and tension by the toxemia 
and disturbed metabolism of thyroid insufficiency, as 
well as from the opposite manifestation, or thyrotoxi- 
cosis. This intelligent pioneer student of thyroid func- 
tion has emphasized the importance of the condition 
known as infiltration which accompanies various forms 
of thyroid insufficiency. Hertoghe’s so-called ‘““myxé- 
déme fruste”—a minor form of real myxedema—is al- 
ways associated with changes in the nature of cellular 
infiltration. Hertoghe believes that the thyroid never 
ean be functionally inefficient without there ensuing 
immediately an intoxication due to the deficient func- 
tion in the cells themselves which is maintained by the 
hormonic “setting in motion” of the cellular chemical 
processes. They are unable to oxidize their foods and 
wastes and there follows an accumulation of poisonous 
substances which causes serious difficulty. In this con- 
nection it may be mentioned that Slosse of Brussels® 
credits the thyroid hormones with a ‘‘deaminizing”’ 
influence and he states that the deaminizing hormone 
of the thyroid is responsible for the oxidization of the 
