THE THYMUS GLAND 89 



The walking steadies and there is not the same 

 tendency to the quick run forward ; whether it 

 has any retarding effect on the end cerebral 

 failure that comes in most cases I cannot say. 

 To sum up : The signs of complete absence of 

 parathyroid, after removal, we know pretty well, 

 as in tetany. In these two other diseases, 

 Graves' disease and paralysis agitans, we have 

 the signs of partial absence, but probably also of 

 altered function ; in both conditions parathyroid 

 feeding is the obvious thing and to a great extent 

 the successful thing. These glands appear to 

 exercise an important control over lime-meta- 

 bolism, and to this may be due its extraordinary 

 power of healing sluggish varicose ulcers. 



THE THYMUS GLAND 



The thymus gland must, I suppose, be thought 

 of as one of the endocrine group. It has for 

 years been the subject of acute controversy. 

 Theories and observations proved and again 

 disproved seem to cloud it in darkness. Bain- 

 bridge briefly says : " The gland is abundantly 

 supplied with blood-vessels. In man it reaches 

 its maximum size during the first two or three 

 years of life ; and then becomes smaller, usually 

 disappearing with the occurrence of puberty, and 



