EDITOR'S PREFACE 



The aim and effort of the American editor has been to furnish, not merely 

 a faithful rendering of the German text, but also a rounding out of the sub- 

 ject by the consideration of recent American and English views. To this 

 end he has consulted a wealth of material, comprising some hundreds of 

 references and numerous original articles, from which it is quite apparent 

 that many of the investigators have been concerned with the purely scien- 

 tific or abstruse, rather than with the clinical aspects of the subject. While 

 consulting the literature, the editor could not help but feel that when it 

 has been properly digested and classified, a considerable advance will have 

 been made toward raising the status of the ductless glandular diseases to the 

 level of an exact science. 



The American and English views mentioned will be found in the adden- 

 dum that is at the end of nearly every chapter. If some of these addenda 

 bear a too subjective tinge it is because the editor in his choice of the litera- 

 ture was guided more or less by his personal experience, in which case he may 

 not have done full justice to certain chapters. Care has been taken, in add- 

 ing the new matter, not to confuse the clear-cut scheme of Falta, who so 

 admirably separates the various groups of ductless glandular diseases by 

 well-defined lines. This delimitation of the various groups of ductless glandu- 

 lar diseases at the present time is a most desirable generalization which will 

 enable us to appreciate not only the various parts which the different duct- 

 less glands play in the make-up of an individual disease picture, but also 

 to individualize in our diagnosis, even as we are now justified in individualiz- 

 ing, to a certain extent, in the types of Basedow's disease. Granted that we 

 are not as yet prepared for this along the whole line of the ductless glandular 

 diseases, it then becomes our obvious duty to ascertain what symptoms the 

 individual ductless glandular diseases, as expressed or evidenced in different 

 patients, have in common, so that the patients may be classed in their re- 

 spective groups. Only later will the emphasis of differences between indi- 

 viduals of the same group add pleasure and refinement to the diagnosis, and 

 efficiency to the treatment. This is said with a knowledge of the prevailing 

 tendency of certain foreign schools, chiefly the French, to regard each indi- 

 vidual patient's condition as a disease picture sui generis; which in truth in 

 one sense it really is, but which, for purposes of analysis and ultimate 

 progress, we are not as yet justified in regarding as such. 



