360 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE ORGANS ON ONE ANOTHER 



the kidneys and the liver undergo fatty and colloidal degeneration, and the 

 arterial walls a hyaline degeneration. 



Metabolism is abnormally low; in one of the patients investigated by J. A. 

 Andersson it amounted on the average to only about 1,200 Cal. per day i. e., 

 18.8 Cal. per kilogram of body weight. The appetite is poor and the utilization 

 of foodstuffs is below the normal. On the other hand no noteworthy change is 

 observed in the rate of the pulse. 



The disturbances of the nervous and muscular systems are very marked. 

 In the monkey the individual contractions of the muscles succeed each other 

 after the usual manner of clonic convulsions; then comes a summation of con- 



FIG. 138. A cretinous child, after Holt. A, twenty-three months old, previous to treatment. 

 B, after six months' treatment with thyroid extract. 



tractions and after this tetanuslike spasms, ending finally in complete rigidity 

 and contracture. Besides these, indications of reduced nervous activity occur 

 in the form of paralysis and anaesthesia. Thyroidectomy not infrequently 

 brings on functional neuroses, such as epilepsy, etc. These disorders are not of 

 peripheral origin, for they are wanting after section of the motor nerves; on 

 the other hand they are not abolished by scraping off the motor zone of the 

 cerebral cortex. The point of discharge of impulses for the muscular convul- 

 sions appears therefore to lie in the lower parts of the central nervous system, 

 although the higher nerve centers are not in a perfectly normal condition, as 

 judged by histological appearances after extirpation of the thyroid. This appears 



