CONCLUSION 



Metabolism without a doubt is chiefly governed 

 and directed by our endocrine glands, and it is 

 to them we must look both for the cause of 

 degeneration and for the way of relief. Biedl, in 

 a very able article in Endocrinology, September 

 1921, says : " Brown Sequard, the father of the 

 internal secretions, placed the gonads as the axis 

 of the problem of old age, and in his own person 

 and to his own satisfaction thought it proved. 

 This limited application of our present-day know- 

 ledge no longer satisfies." Biedl later on says : 

 " Just as all bodily conditions and their funda- 

 mental chemical reactions are under the influence 

 of the entire hormone apparatus, so is old age. 

 This condition is regulated and directed in the 

 degree and course of its development, not only 

 by the testicles or ovaries, particularly by the 

 interstitial cells, but just as well by the thyroid 

 and thymus glands, by the pituitary and pineal, by 

 the inter- renal and adrenal system, hi short, by the 

 whole endocrine apparatus, by its single parts, but 

 before all by the harmonious co-operation of all." 

 In the treatment and arrest of senile degenera- 

 tion we must continually keep this ideal doctrine 

 ever before us. Individual cases willjshow more 

 or less failure of individual glands, and in our 

 treatment this guidance must be followed. 



