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 3 and Handler of New York, 4 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 5 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 "myxe- 

 deme 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 

 can 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 6 

 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 



