CHONDRODYSTROPHY 493 



the authors did not themselves see, was 80 cm. tall at the age of twelve years, 

 and had an enlarged head and shortened extremities. It seems thus also to 

 have been a chondrodystrophy, as the authors suppose with entire correct- 

 ness. Glaessner showed two cases of chondrodystrophy at the Wiener 

 Gesellschaft. der Ar-zte. They were father and son, fifty-six and twenty 

 years old, 101 and 108 cm. tall respectively. It was elicited that for four 

 generations, dwarfism always existed in the male members of the family, 

 while the women were, entirely normal. A fine example of inheritance of 

 the disease was also observed in the first medical clinic. It concerned a 

 father, son, and daughter. I here reproduce the photographs. The father 

 was forty-nine years old, the son nineteen, the daughter twelve years old. 

 The wife of the father was of normal height. (Observation LXIV, LXV, 

 andLXVI). 



Etiology. As I already mentioned at the beginning chondrodystrophy 

 was first regarded as fetal rickets, an assumption that was already the experi- 

 ments of Parrot and Porak showed unfounded. Virchow regarded as typical 

 for endemic cretinism the premature synostosis of the os tribasilaris that 

 'occurs in chondrodystrophy and on this supposition turned attention to 

 the thyroid gland etiologically. The assumption of insufficiency of the 

 thyroid gland is recognized as incorrect, as the result of the works of 

 Kaufmann and, later, Diederle, in spite of which Hertoghe, Stotzner and Moro 

 again adopted the thyrogenic origin of chondrodystrophy. In all accurately 

 investigated cases the thyroid gland is entirely normal, however (Diederle, 

 Breus and Kolisko, Kassowitz, etc.). The supposition of Moro that in his 

 case there had occurred previously a dysplasia of the thyroid gland is not 

 justified by anything. Also in the case reported by me, there was not a 

 single symptom that belonged to the symptom-complex of hypothyrosis. 

 Then again thyroid therapy is entirely without results, even in young 

 individuals. Recently Sumita has set forth the untenability of thyroid- 

 gland therapy. 



Lauze points out that the buffoons of kings were chondrodystrophic dwarfs 

 who have been described as talented, loquacious, quick at repartee, "fond of 

 everything that glitters," and sometimes also as maniacal. Lauze regards 

 this mental condition as the result of hypersecretion of the interstitial glands. 

 Euziere and Delmas describe a case of chondrodystrophy with psychical 

 characteristics such as Lauze has described; they regard these however as an 

 expression of degeneration and do not believe that such psychical earmarks 

 stand in causal associationship with chondrodystrophy. In the cases of 

 chondrodystrophy observed by me I could not observe any of the mental 

 characteristics described by Lauze. The hypothesis of Lauze should hardly 

 gain adherents. 



Differential Diagnosis. Nowadays we ought not to waste words con- 

 sidering the differential diagnosis from cretinism. 



