INTRODUCTORY 13 



continuous. This all tends to open up a new hope 

 for therapeutics. In place of uncertain remedies 

 that are foreign to our tissues and that intrin- 

 sically are often poisonous, we supply what is 

 lacking from the animal kingdom ; moreover, 

 by supplying one gland essence that is deficient 

 we can help to set the others working together 

 again in their proper harmony. 



It is the anaemic and those with thyroid and 

 pituitary deficiency that succumb most readily : 

 the cretin, the myxcedematous, those with the 

 perverted thyroid of Graves' disease, who mostly 

 die long before their time and almost always of 

 some intercurrent disease. 



During pregnancy careful observation will often 

 show signs of endocrine deficiency or excess, and 

 these will surely tell on the health and develop- 

 ment of the foetus. The blood-pressure should be 

 tested from time to time and the urine examined : 

 high pressure and slight albuminuria will point 

 to thyroid deficiency, which can easily be corrected. 

 Low pressures, headache, and depression will point 

 to the pituitary as cause. 



It can hardly be doubted that the frequent 

 developmental failures that we see in early child- 

 hood must be due to inherited endocrine causes 

 or to material deficiencies before birth. 



