91 
of morphine or opium. Thus Tyson® considers opium to be a 
rational remedy, although he states that Ord and MacKenzie found 
that it is not well borne; Tyson prefers codeine. Our experiments 
showed that morphine is very toxic to animals in which a condition of 
thyroidism has been produced. Of course it has not been conclu- 
sively proved that there is a condition of hyperthyroidism in ex- 
ophthalmic goiter or that man would react to morphine in the same 
way as do the lower animals. If we may judge of the degree of 
thyroidism from the loss of weight, our animals were as a rule cer- 
tainly less deeply intoxicated than are many patients with exoph- 
thalmic goiter. 
The increased susceptibility to morphine of animals to which thyroid 
has been fed is suggestive in another connection. 
May not many of the very diverse symptoms which occur in ex- 
ophthalmic goiter be secondary, i. e., may not the condition of hyper- 
thyroidism render many of the organs abnormally sensitive to poisons 
originating in the body itself (possibly products of intestinal putre- 
faction) or introduced from without (substances contained in meat, 
for example) ? Organs rendered hypersensitive by the thyroid secre- 
tion may respond to amounts of such poisons ordinarily too small to 
produce any symptoms, just as the thyroid-fed rats may die from 
doses of morphine which would ordinarily be entirely innocuous. 
As is well known there are few diseases in which so many drugs and 
forms of treatment have been recommended, often apparently with 
good reason, as in the case of exophthalmic goiter. Perhaps the 
effect of these is entirely secondary, i. e., some intestinal antiseptics 5 
may check the formation of injurious substances, others may diminish 
the irritability of an over-stimulated organ. 
a J. Tyson, Internat. Clin., Phila., 1906, Series 16, 1, p. 3. 
6c/. W. H. Thomson, Am. J. Med. Sci., 1908, 135, p. 313. 
