THE THYKOID GLAND AND ITS DISEASES 225 



out just as in man. Complete removal of the thyroid was successfully 

 carried out in dogs of medium age and in old dogs, but in young animals 

 death occurred within a few days. The post-mortem examination did not 

 reveal the cause of death. 



Astley Cooper gave some account of the structure of the thyroid and 

 extirpated the gland from two pups ten weeks old. The animals recovered 

 after suffering from stupidity and malaise. The animals were killed very 

 soon after the operation. Cooper seems to have carried out some further 

 experiments, the results of which were not published. 



V. Eapp (quoted by Bopp) removed the thyroid from a dog and a 

 goat without ill effects. But removal of a goiter from dogs proved rapidly 

 fatal. Bardeleben (,) succeeded in extirpating the thyroid in dogs and 

 rabbits without inducing any ill effects. Other experiments carried out at 

 this period were of little import. 



Moritz Schiff during the years 1856, 1857 and 1858 carried out a 

 series of thyroidectomies upon various animals. Some rabbits, some rats, 

 some fowls, and some dogs survived the operation, but several dogs, a cat, 

 and a rat died after some days. He gives hardly any account of the 

 symptoms observed. Schiff explains that owing to insufficient accommo- 

 dation he was compelled to cease his observations after fifteen days. 



In 1857 Hegar and Simon removed the thyroid from an old cat, 

 which a month after the operation showed no symptoms. Eleonet in 1866 

 removed a goiter from a colt without ill effects. 



The earlier results of Schiff were apparently read before the Royal 

 Academy of Science in Copenhagen and then buried in a work on the 

 formation of sugar in the liver. It is not surprising that they remained 

 unnoticed for many years. Cretinism had long been recognized, and in 

 1874 Gull described the condition which Ord, in 1878, called "myx- 

 edema." In 1882 the Swiss surgeons noted the symptoms of "cachexia 

 strumipriva," or "operative myxedema," after operations for goiter in 

 the human subject. 



After an interval of a quarter of a. century Schiff was led by the 

 observations of Kocher and Reverdin in Switzerland to take up the 

 problem again. In 1884 he recalled his earlier experiments of 1856-1858, 

 and published the results of a new series of investigations. In the rat and 

 the rabbit, thyroidectomy was not followed by any serious result. In the 

 dog and the cat, however, complete removal was fatal. He gives an admir- 

 able account of the nervous symptoms after removal of the thyroid in the 

 dog, and states that these may be avoided by a previous graft of the 

 thyroid of one dog into the abdominal cavity of another. Other symptoms 

 noted by Schiff were general malaise, arrest of growth in a young cat, 

 and in two cases edema. 



It must be noted that some of these symptoms, particularly those of 

 a nervous nature, are at the present time attributed to loss of parathyroid 



