THE THYROID GLAND AND THE ADRENALS. 151 



however, he found that fresh thyroid and thymus extractives 

 were capable of relieving for a time the symptoms of acute 

 cachexia in young dogs from which the thyroid had been 

 removed. 



While these observations have been considered as opposed 

 to prevailing views, they lose this characteristic when the 

 suprarenal glands are looked upon as connected, though pas- 

 sively, with the toxic manifestations observed. The thyroid 

 may not necessarily be an organ of extreme importance to life, 

 for instance, as thought by Munk, since it thus becomes the 

 source of a substance which is merely intended to stimulate 

 the adrenals: i.e., to produce effects similar to those of a 

 poison upon them or their center precisely as did the many 

 drugs we have reviewed. In the animals in which acute ca- 

 chexia did not occur in Munk's experiments the adrenals were 

 simply adequate to meet the .extra call upon their functions, 

 while in those that succumbed the majority the adrenals 

 yielded to accumulated waste-products, owing to the supra- 

 renal insufficiency engendered. So was Cunningham right in 

 saying that the symptoms of intoxication could not be ascribed 

 to the specific thyroid derivative, since all the toxic symptoms 

 observed, whether obtained from tissue toxalbumins, thyroid 

 extract, or any other active body, can now all be traced to the 

 adrenals. 



Under these circumstances it is obvious that continued 

 administration of thyroid extractives should so stimulate the 

 adrenals as to enable them, through overactivity, to increase 

 the oxidizing substance in the serum and destroy the toxic 

 waste-products. Baumann and Goldmann 10 found that thy- 

 roidectomized dogs did not show tetanic convulsions as long 

 as iodothyrin was administered regularly each day in doses 

 ranging from 2 to 6 grammes, but the convulsions returned 

 as soon as the iodothyrin was no longer administered. A 

 striking reminder of the effects of antitoxic serum is the fact 

 that the more marked were the symptoms and the longer was 

 the administration of thyroid delayed, the larger had the dose 

 to be to counteract the phenomena witnessed. This simul- 



Baumann and Goldmann: Miinchener med. Wochenschrift, p. 1153, 



