THYROID INSUFFICIENCY 59 



failure is one of the chief causes of sclerosis. 

 Apart from the nature of our food, it has been a 

 custom, again almost a national one, to eat a good 

 deal more of all sorts of food than our digestive 

 organs can cope with or than our bodies require. 

 This leads to our intestines being loaded with 

 imperfectly digested food, which when absorbed 

 becomes an actual poison to the whole system, 

 to blood, brain, nerves, and vessels. Persons 

 who live to a great age, 90 or over, are nearly 

 always small eaters, and at the end of life take so 

 little that one wonders how they live at all, but 

 they are right consciously or unconsciously. 



What kills most of us is the uncleared ashbin. 

 The thyroid gland which chiefly controls meta- 

 bolism, owing to impure blood circulating through 

 it, fails in its office, and the ashbin becomes more 

 clogged. In all these cases we find evidence of 

 subthyroidism, and the most prominent symptom 

 of it is raised blood-pressure ; this, if neglected, 

 goes on to hypertrophy of the arterial coats and 

 then to true sclerosis. The common-sense indica- 

 tions are to clear the ashbin, clear the flues, and 

 for the furnace to use the right sort of fuel and 

 rather less of it : this we surely can do. 



In men the presclerotic condition comes on 

 sometimes insidiously, and without any loud 



