58 GLANDS IN HEALTH AND DISEASE 



ophthalmoscope (a mirror used in examining the 

 interior of the eye) and perimeter (an instrument 

 that measures the field of vision) can a diagnosis of 

 pituitary disease apart from acromegaly be made 

 with any probability. Unlike the thyroid enlarge- 

 ment, a hypophyseal growth can be determined 

 only by indirect methods; for next to the brain 

 itself, the hypophysis lies in possibly the best pro- 

 tected and most inaccessible place in the body 

 one reason for assuming that it may be a most im- 

 portant member of the endocrine series." 



Use of pituitary extract. Now it is time to 

 answer the question that must arise in the minds 

 of readers: If a person suffering from hypo- 

 thyroidism, and showing symptoms of myxedema, 

 can be cured by being fed with thyroid extract, is 

 it possible to cure sufferers from hypo-pituitarism 

 by feeding them with pituitary extract? It is in 

 many cases, though one can point to just as many 

 cases where such treatment has been of no avail. 

 Pituitrin extract has been given by mouth and by 

 means of an injection; and a few transplantation 

 experiments have been performed on animals; but 

 the results have been only moderately successful; 

 certainly not nearly as successful as when thy- 

 roid extract is administered in the corresponding 

 thyroid disease. Why this should be is not clear, 

 unless we admit that a hypophyseal insufficiency 

 creates at times such a disordered organism, that 



