6 



Prof. Victor Horsley. 



[Jan. 7, 



tissue ; however, moisture seems to slightly reduce the rate of loss in 

 the latter. With regard to the compound tissue — compact-spongy, 

 the changes which its conductivity undergoes present simply a varying 

 mean of those of its two components. After long exposure to the air, 

 the bone being well dried, the conductivities of compact and of 

 spongy tissue are found to closely approximate each other. 



Experiments on Brain. 



The experiments on this tissue had reference only to the changes of 

 its conductivity, due to exposure to the air, and to the effect of 

 moisture and fresh animal liquids on these changes. 



Like liver and kidney, the tissue of brain quickly loses its power of 

 conduction after death, and neither moisture or fresh animal matter 

 can restore this loss, although they may diminish its rate. 



II. " Further Researches into the Function of the Thyroid 

 Gland and into the Pathological State produced by Removal 

 of the same." By Professor Victor Horsley, B.S., F.R.C.S. 

 Communicated by Professor Michael Foster, M.D., Sec. R.S. 

 Received December 10, 1885. 



In December, 1884, I showed that the thyroid gland was intimately 

 connected with the process of mucin metabolism, that if the thyroid 

 gland in monkeys was removed with antiseptic precautions (the same 

 ensuring healing of the wound in three days) the consequences to the 

 animal were — (1) symptoms of general nervous disturbance evidenced 

 by tremors, paroxysmal convulsions, functional paralysis, mental hebe- 

 tude, and finally complete imbecility ; (2) profound anaemia coupled 

 with leucocytosis ; (3) all the symptoms of the disease discovered 

 within the last decade and termed myxcedema; (4) that just as in the 

 acute form of the disease just named there was found to be a great 

 accumulation of mucin in the connective tissues throughout the body 

 (mucinoid degeneration), and in the blood, and as a consequence the 

 same post-mortem appearances ; (5) that at the same time there was a 

 great activity in the raucin-secreting glands, and, further, that the 

 parotid gland under these abnormal circumstances secreted mucin in 

 large quantity, the gland cells at the same time disintegrating. 



During the past year I have confirmed my previous observations, 

 and greatly extended them, and have firm basis for my original 

 opinion that the function of the thyroid gland is indispensable to the 

 higher animals, and that it is duplex, since, in the first place, it 

 regulates the formation of mucin in the body ; and, in the second 



