On myxoedema and allied disorders : being the Bradshaw lecture delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, on November 10th, 1898 / by William M. Ord.

  • Ord, William M. (William Miller), 1834-1902.
Date:
[1898]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On myxoedema and allied disorders : being the Bradshaw lecture delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, on November 10th, 1898 / by William M. Ord. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    once enlarged it is often found that there is increase of enlarge- ment at the time of menstrual period. When, as in many women, conditions approaching the inflammatory occur in various parts of the body at the time of menstruation, it is no hasty induction if we suppose that a local exaggeration of such conditions may lead to a permanent enlargement, to be followed by simple subsidence or possibly in some cases by contraction. I know of no changes in the sexual organs of men in any way related with inyxoedema where it attacks them, and imma facie, I should not expect to find such a relation, there being in men no periodical disturbance comparable to those of menstruation. In sporadic cretinism, which is really only myxoedema occurring in childhood, the affection of the two sexes a])pears to be about ecpial, boys and girls alike in those cases being affected by developmental error. It is only after the full development of the sexual organs that tlie dispx’oportionate implication of women becomes evident. So far as I know, the occurrence of sexual development in sporadic cretinism, for the most part very delayed, does not affect the further course of the disease in either sex. The boy and the girl suffering alike from their myxcedema, carry it on with them equally when they respectively become man and woman. In relation to the points that have just come under discussion, I may draw attention to an exceedingly interesting paper read by Dr. George lb Murray at Edinburgh in July last on “The I )iagnosis of Early Thyroidal Eibrosis.” The object of this paper is to draw more attention to a class of cases of early disease with partial disablement of the thyroid gland, which are more common than is generally supposed. Dr. Murray points out that the symptoms in these cases are not yet sufficiently well recognised, and he regards the symptoms to be the result of a certain amount of atrophy of the glandular tissue of the thyroid with fibrosis, but he does not think it desirable to discuss the question as to the possibility of fibrosis being primary and leading to atrophy of the secreting epithelium as a secondary result, or to fibrosis as a secondary condition following atrophy. The urine. For the most part, the urine in myxoedema contains no albumin, certainly not as a rule until the disease has lasted a very long time, often not at all from beginning to end. Where albumin however is present regularly in the urine together with casts and degenerated epithelium, we may regard it as an indication that the kidney has undergone an internal change com-