XII 



MYXCEDEMA 



r\N 4th October 1873, Sir William Gull read 

 a short paper before the Clinical Society of 

 London, " On a Cretinoid State supervening in 

 Adult Life in Women." This famous first account 

 of myxcedema was based on five cases : it is less 

 than five pages long, it does not suggest a name 

 for the disease, and it says nothing about the 

 thyroid gland. Four years later (23rd October 

 1877) Dr Ord read a paper before the Medico- 

 Chirurgical Society of London, " On Myxcedema ; 

 a term proposed to be applied to an essential con- 

 dition in the ' Cretinoid ' Affection occasionally 

 observed in Middle-aged Women." His work 

 had begun so far back as 1861 ; and in this 1877 

 paper he gave not only clinical observations, but 

 also pathological and chemical facts ; and he noted, 

 as one among many changes, wasting of the thyroid 

 gland. He also pointed out the close resemblance 

 between cases of myxcedema and cases of sporadic 

 cretinism. 



In 1882, Reverdin stated before the Medical 

 Society of Geneva that signs like those of myxce- 



