Myxœdema, cretinism and the goitres : with some of their relations / by Edward T. Blake.

  • Blake, Edward T. (Edward Thomas), 1842-1905.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Myxœdema, cretinism and the goitres : with some of their relations / by Edward T. Blake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    P E E F A C E The reader will soon find that the burden of this book is the septic or the infective nature of disease. The points which more particularly I seek to establish are :— (1) That Graves' disease in woman is an autotoxis, most frequently caused by the absorption of purulent products; that process being aided, rather than induced, by the toxines of terror or shock. (2) The same products lead to the production of rheu- matism in males, by acting in the same locality, viz., the medulla oblongata. (3) If these products abolish the functions of the thyroid, we may get myxoedema. (4) If these products invade the cortex, in large quantity and abruptly, we get a psychosis, as for example, mania; or some neurosis, such as epilepsy. (5) If the invasion be more gradual and the poisons be more diluted, we get chorea. Much of this of course is hypothetic, and is by way of being a provisional pathology. Nothing, in scientific matters, least of all in pathology, can be viewed as final or absolute. Nevertheless, it is along these lines that the campaign probably will be pushed. 1