THYROID EXTRACT 



297 



the remarkable experiments of SchifT and von 

 Eisselsberg. I only became aware in April 1890, 

 that this proposal had been in fact forestalled in 

 1889 by Dr Bircher, in Aarau. (The date of Dr 

 Bircher's operation was 16th January 1889.) 

 Kocher had tried to do the same thing in 1883, 

 but the graft was soon absorbed ; but early in 1889 

 he tried it again, in five cases, and one greatly 

 improved." 



The importance of this treatment, by trans- 

 plantation of living thyroid-tissue, must be judged 

 by the fact that in 1888 no practical use had yet 

 been made of the scientific work that had been 

 done. The Clinical Society's Report, published 

 that year, give but half a page to treatment, of the 

 old-fashioned sort ; and not a word of hope. 



Then, at last, in 1891, came Dr George Murray's 

 paper in the British Medical Journal, " Note on 

 the Treatment of Myxcedema by Hypodermic 

 Injections of an Extract of the Thyroid Gland of a 

 Sheep." Later, hypodermic injections of thyroid- 

 extract gave way to sandwiches made with thyroid- 

 gland (Dr Hector Mackenzie, and Dr Fox of 

 Plymouth), and these in their turn were eclipsed by 

 tabloids. # 



It is a strange sequence, from 1873 onward: 

 clinical observation, post-mortem work, calamities of 

 surgery, experimental physiology, transplantation, 

 hypodermic injections, sandwiches, and tabloids. 



* It remains only to isolate, even more perfectly, the active 

 principle or principles of thyroid-tissue : Blum's " thyreo- 

 iodin " is perhaps a step in this direction. 



