Symptoms following Thyro-parathyroidectomy 3 



not influenced, to any extent, by age or sex. In the case of dogs 

 the writer can corroborate this statement, but it appears to be 

 otherwise in the sheep, as the following account of experiments on 

 this animal will show. 



In the course of another investigation 2 the thyroids were com- 

 pletely removed from eighteen lambs, from seven to eight months 

 old, and twelve adult sheep, without, in the course of the six 

 months which intervened between the operation and their slaugh- 

 ter, any apparent ill effects. There was no falling out of the wool, 

 nor any of the other symptoms of myxcedema supposed to be 

 associated with complete thyroidectomy, and several of the adults 

 gave birth to full-time, and to all appearance, perfectly normal 

 lambs. 



From three of these lambs, at the age of two months, the thy- 

 roids were removed, the two external parathyroids being left behind, 

 and from two others at the same age (also born of thyroidectomized 

 mothers) all the thyroid and parathyroid tissue was taken away. 

 The latter, in the course of ten and nineteen days respectively, 

 developed typical and acute parathyroid tetany. In one, the first 

 fit was fatal in less than an hour from the onset, the rectal tem- 

 perature being 112 0 F. one minute after death, and in the other, 

 which was killed during the fit, the thermometer reached 108. 7 0 F. 

 immediately before death. 



The three from which the thyroids alone were removed de- 

 veloped into typical cretins. 



In these three, about one year after the first operation, the two 

 remaining external parathyroids were removed. As a result of 

 this there followed what appeared to be some gastro-intestinal 

 disturbance, and on three or four occasions, several weeks apart, 

 each lasting about a week, some stiffness of the limbs, but nothing 

 of the nature of acute tetany with rise of temperature, increased 

 respiration, etc., which was so marked in the other two. These 

 three sheep are still alive more than four months after the second 

 operation. 



In addition to the three above mentioned, other two adult 

 sheep, aged two and seven years respectively, have had the com- 



2 Simpson and Hunter, Quart. Jour. Exper. Physiol., 191 1, iv, p. 340. 



