Old age deferred : the causes of old age and its postponement by hygienic and therapeutic measures... / by Arnold Lorand... Translated, with additions, by the author from the second German edition.

  • Lorand, Arnold.
Date:
1910
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Old age deferred : the causes of old age and its postponement by hygienic and therapeutic measures... / by Arnold Lorand... Translated, with additions, by the author from the second German edition. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    thalmic goiter. Lactation is also dependent upon thyroid activity. After prolonged lactation there is an exhaustion of thyroid activity; and, on the other hand, by giving thyroid extract we can increase the flow of milk. The swelling of the thyroid in the above conditions can be explained by the greater demand for thyroid secretion, and that this hyperactivity occurs is also shown by the observations of the early writers on myxoedema. Morvan, Ord, and Combe found that myxcedema was frequently caused by numerous pregnancies, especially if associated with prolonged lactation. This also* explains why women become prematurely old so much more frequently than men, for their ovaries are much sooner exhausted, in consequence of their activity being much greater than that of the male sexual glands. There is a much greater demand not only on the female sexual glands, but also on the female thyroid, which enlarges every month in many women, and is greatly exhausted by each pregnancy. As Hertoghe23 says, with reference to this exhaustion of the thyroid by preg- nancies, each child demands one tooth. According to Hertoghe, pregnancies are especially apt to produce degenerated conditions of the thyroid gland. Sexual excesses, on account of the concomitant nervous excitement, are also very prejudicial to the adrenals, for just as frequent nervous excitement in general, they produce alterations in the blood-pressure and favor the development of arterioscle- rosis. Sexual excesses are also very harmful to men, although their action on the thyroid, in men, has not yet been ascertained. It is a fact, however, that they diminish the resistance to infec- tions, and favor the onset of neurasthenia and arteriosclerosis. Changes in the thyroid also become manifest during the climacteric, and the troublesome nervous manifestations at this period are largely due to this fact. Later, on account of the 22Hertoghe: Die Erkrankungen der Schilddriise und der chronische gutartige Hypothyreoidismu, Miinchen, Lehmann, 1900.