230 THE INTERNAL SECRETIONS—1920 
like the pituitary gland; or connecting them apparently 
with other organs, as the adrenals and the parathy- 
roids—thus protecting them from possible injury, and 
allowing them to produce their valuable hormones un- 
disturbed. 
Now, when the ductless glands are anatomically and 
functionally in a normal condition, the hormones that 
they produce are also in an equally normal physiological 
state, and are produced in just the right proportion to 
mix with the blood stream, and perform their proper 
functions. But, unfortunately, these glands, like the 
rest of the body, are subject to different attacks from 
outside or inside, with resulting dysfunction, be it the 
numerous pathogenic microbes that frequently infest 
the organism, or be it the various growths, benignant 
as well as malignant, that either compress or entirely 
destroy the affected gland. Under such pathological 
conditions the product of the affected gland will either 
be diminished or increased. This will manifest itself 
clinically in the affected individual by sharply defined 
symptoms, a syndrome, more or less complex, caused 
either by the hypofunction or hyperfunction of the af- 
fected gland, and the changes that this initial dyscrin- 
ism naturally brings about. 
THE THYROID GLAND 
As an illustration, let us take up a few of the well- 
known syndromes produced by a pathological condition 
of certain ductless glands. Compare, for instance, the 
symptom-complex produced by the extirpation of the 
thyroid gland as in cachexia thyroprivia with that as 
the result of increased activity of the gland, as in 
Graves’s disease. The table below is taken originally 
from the splendid work of A. Kocher, of Berne, as cited 
by Biedl: (1) 
