6 ENDOCRINE GLANDS 



have the ability to act selectively on certain organs, be 

 they near or far away. "Each tissue and more generally 

 each cell of the organism secretes of itself special products, 

 or ferments, which are poured into the blood and which 

 Influence through the intermediary of this liquid, all the 

 other cells, thus brought in contact with each other by a 

 mechanism other than the nervous system." From this 

 was born the idea of the action on various organs of 

 specific substances secreted in the blood and as a corollary 

 this other fundamental notion of a functional corollation 

 of the secretions. The subsequent researches of Brown- 

 Sequard and of a number of physiologists and physicians 

 showed, in spite of the poor result of testicular fluid, how 

 valuable were these theories. Not only did it open a new 

 path to experimental physiology, but it allowed new 

 clinical interpretations and new therapeutic methods. 



Pathology very quickly came to the help of physiology 

 and ,shed considerable light on the endocrine glands. The 

 thyroid gland is the best known in this respect. The con- 

 ception of myxedema was born from the observation of 

 Gull, Ord and Charcot on senile myxedema, of Reverdin 

 and Kocher on post operative myxedema, of Bourneville 

 on idiocy due to myxedema and infantile myxedema, and 

 was made more comprehensive by the investigations of 

 Vassale and Gley who caused the improvement of the 

 severe symptoms resulting from the removal of the thy- 

 roid by means of injections of thyroid extracts, and 

 completed by those of Murray applying this method to 

 the treatment of human myxedema. In this way the 

 double conception that an insufficiency of the thyroid was 

 responsible for this condition and it could be remedied by 

 means of organotherapy was the result of the discoveries 

 of Brown-Sequard. 



Shortly afterward the researches of Moussu and those 



