34 GLANDS IN HEALTH AND DISEASE 



is often followed by post-operative changes that 

 are quite discouraging a factor that of course 

 enters into many other types of operations. In 

 any case, unless the disease has taken a very grave 

 turn, when the individual is pretty much on the 

 borderland between life and death, the treatment 

 is apt to be anything but surgical. 



Treatment other than surgical centers around 

 the word "rest." No particular insight on the part 

 of the lay reader is required to understand the 

 reason for this. If the body machine is perform- 

 ing its cycle of operations at an accelerated speed, 

 anything that will tend to decrease the rate will 

 prove beneficial. Dr. Charles Mayo says: "The 

 opinion of an eminent surgeon (Kocher) that 90 

 per cent, of all goiters can be improved so as to 

 make operations unnecessary, was probably based 

 upon observations of the effect of rest, for rest is 

 the common element in all the various forms of 

 treatment that have proved successful." 



The attending physician has, of course, to con- 

 sider the question of diet and the use of drugs. 

 Food containing iodine should, ipso facto, be barred 

 from the table, on the assumption that since the 

 hormone responsible for thyroid activity is prob- 

 ably an iodine compound, we need do nothing to 

 increase the quantity of iodine in the body. Then 

 again a drug that will tend to decrease the rapid 

 action of the heart may prove advisable. These 



