12 
on the fact that iodine is so generally found in the thyroid in health 
and is apparently absent or present in diminished amounts in certain 
forms of goiter. 
Before discussing in detail the chief arguments in favor of Bau- 
mann’s view certain of the objections which have been made to it 
may be considered. The principle of these objections may be clas- 
sified as follows : 
a. Iodine is not invariably found in the thyroids of healthy animals; 
when it does occur there are great variations in its amount. 
b. Artificially iodized proteins, including those of the thyroid 
itself, are inactive physiologically or the activity is not at all propor- 
tional to the amount of iodine which has been added; this is also 
true of iodothyrine to which iodine has been added in vitro. 
c. Thymus was reported to be of value in the treatment of goiter. 
d. The reputed “active principle” of the thyroid (Baumann’s 
iodothyrine) did not prevent tetany in animals from which the thy- 
roids had been removed. 
e. Efficiency of iodine compounds other than iodothyrine in goiter. 
These points may now be considered in more detail: 
a. Iodine is not invariably 'present in the thyroid . — Miwa and Stoeltz- 
ner a early laid great emphasis on this point. They argued that if 
the theory that iodine is an essential constituent of the thyroid is 
.correct, then the absence of iodine in the thyroid of an individual 
would have the same serious effects as the absence of the gland 
itself. They pointed out that Baumann had reported the frequent 
absence of iodine from the thyroid of children, and of dogs fed on 
meat; yet neither the children nor the dogs had shown any indica- 
tions of thyroid insufficiency. Miwa and Stoeltzner confirmed 
Baumann’s observations on the frequent absence of iodine from 
the thyroids of children; they also stated that the hen’s egg contains 
no iodine and that the young chick thus begins life without iodine. 
They emphasized the dependence of the iodine content of the thyroid 
upon the diet. From these facts Miwa and Stoeltzner argued that 
the iodine usualfy found in the thyroid has no more significance than 
the traces of copper so often found in the liver. Similar arguments 
were advanced with great emphasis by Neumeister b at about the 
same time; he stated that the iodine of the thyroid has absolutely 
no physiological significance. 
These arguments of Miwa and Stoeltzner and of Neumeister have 
been repeated to the present time; the facts upon which they were 
based have received abundant confirmation. 0 Thus Topfer in Vienna 
a S. Miwa and W. Stoeltzner, Jahrb. f. Kinderh., 1897, 45, p. 83. 
Neumeister, Lehrbuch der physiologischen Chemie, 2d ed., 1897, p.520. Of. 
also Halliburton in Schafer’s Textbook of Physiology, 1898, 1, p. 89. 
c An abstract of the literature showing how frequently iodine is absent from the 
thyroids of infants is given on page 33 of this bulletin. 
