234 THE INTERNAL SECRETIONS 1920 



fundamental to life, because their hormones, appar- 

 ently, keep in check the toxins in the blood, which, once 

 liberated, cause havoc with the organism, producing 

 syasms, tetany and other morbid symptoms that rapid- 

 ly kill the patient. This view is expressed by Falta (4) 

 from whom we quote : "The parathyroids would seem 

 to furnish to the blood-path a hormone which renders 

 innocuous poisons that exist in the body." This func- 

 tion he calls "the detoxicating function." 



THE ADRENAL GLANDS 



Now let us see what role the adrenals play in the 

 organism. According to Sajous (5), "It is the adrenal 

 secretion which, after absorbing oxygen from the pul- 

 monary air and being taken up by the red corpuscles, 

 supplies the whole organism, including the blood, with 

 its oxygen. It is, as such, the oxidizing constituent of 

 the hemoglobin, which, in turn, sustains tissue oxida- 

 tion and metabolism." An excess of the adrenal secre- 

 tion, as produced during infectious diseases, causes in 

 the organism a heightened temperature, fever, due to 

 the excessive oxidation that it causes. Thus the adre- 

 nal secretion becomes a powerful factor in the auto- 

 protective apparatus of the organism. The vital im- 

 portance of the adrenals is evidenced from the fact that 

 the removal or destruction of these glands is followed 

 by death of the animal. 



In the so-called Addison's disease we have a symptom 

 complex of adrenal insufficiency, or chronic progressive 

 hypoadrenia. It manifests itself in hypothermia the 

 patient always feels chilly in dyspnea, in progressive 

 asthenia, weak heart action, and low blood pressure, in 

 emaciation, anorexia, vomiting, diarrhea, in bronzing 

 of the skin, in lumbar and abdominal pains, in a marked 

 tendency to syncope, impairment of vision and hearing, 

 in headache, irritability, hallucinations, delirium, con- 

 vulsions, and finally in coma and sudden death. 



