THE THYROID 31 



ophthalmic goiter/' though the English sometimes 

 call it "Graves's disease," and the Germans, "Base- 

 dow'sche Krankheit," to denote the work done by 

 pioneers. Often these diseases present a greater 

 complexity than a mere hypersecretion. Here 

 again much of the preliminary work was done by 

 experiments on animals. Instead, however, of re- 

 moving the thyroid gland which we do when we 

 study the effects of hyposecretion extra doses of 

 extracts of the gland are administered. When this 

 is done we almost invariably produce symptoms in 

 the animal that bear a strong resemblance to ex- 

 ophthalmic goiter in man. 



Symptoms in exophthalmic goiter. As might be 

 suspected, the symptoms of this disease are very 

 much the reverse of those in cretinism and myxe- 

 clema. The slowing up of cellular processes, so 

 characteristic of myxedema sufferers, gives place 

 to a decided acceleration of these processes. The 

 stupid, apathetic expression is replaced by an anx- 

 ious, restless one. In the place of a deposit of fat 

 there is a wasting away of the tissues. The subject 

 becomes thin because of excessive metabolism (we 

 shall take up the question of metabolism later). 

 The pulse is rapid it may vary from 100 to 140 

 per minute and irregular. The thyroid is usually, 

 though not invariably, increased in size (hence 

 "goiter"). There is also usually, though not in- 

 variably, an abnormal protrusion of the eyeball 



