ADAPTATIONS 



Graves' Disease, which most writers, but 

 not myself,* regard as a disease of this 

 gland. For occasioning unending discus- 

 sion, the thyroid in medicine is like the 

 tariff in politics, and so we pass on to take 

 up the Islands of Langerhans. 



The Islands of Langerhans are peculiar 

 gland structures imbedded in the pancreas 

 and which add to the blood an internal 

 secretion of their own wholly distinct from 

 the secretion of the pancreas itself, which 

 flows off to the intestine through its duct. 

 Disease of these islands causes bread, the 

 staff of life, to become highly poisonous, 

 because such disease causes that mortal 

 derangement, diabetes. But a most pe- 



* The reader may consult my monograph on Graves' 

 Disease, with and without Exophthalmic Goitre (Wm. 

 Wood & Co., New York, 1904), which was written to show 

 that the Thyroid is not primarily but only secondarily 

 affected in this disease, a fact which has important bear- 

 ings on its treatment. Also my article on Graves' Dis- 

 ease and its treatment, in the March, 1908, number of 

 the American Journal of Medical Sciences. 



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