78 ENDOCRINE THERAPEUTICS 



giving phosphorus in pill or by lecithin : this 

 will generally act as a sedative rather than as an 

 exciter. 



When once our eyes are opened we shall see 

 more clearly day by day how much mental dis- 

 turbance depends on, and is connected with, 

 endocrine disorder ; experience and thought 

 will then show many roads to successful treat- 

 ment, such as hitherto have been unattainable. 



GRAVES' DISEASE 



During the vicissitudes of life urgent calls are 

 made from time to time on the thyroid gland, in 

 pregnancy for instance ; but these are nature's 

 conservative demands that fulfil a useful purpose, 

 and that cease when the emergency is over. 

 The only real morbid hyperthyroidism is that 

 which we see in Graves' disease, but the cause is 

 rarely, if ever, in the gland itself ; this is a disease 

 in which we must treat the symptom first and 

 worry out and remove, if possible, the cause as 

 soon as we have traced it. As in most diseases, 

 we must in the first place be opportunists. In 

 this case the condition of the thyroid strikes the 

 eye, the gland is enlarged nearly always, it 

 pulsates visibly, and there may be exophthalmos. 

 The heart's action and the sympathetic nervous 



