The kidneys act by promptly eliminating such toxic products in the urine. They are glands with internal secretion, as shown by the experiments of Brown-Séquard,[21] E. Meyer,[22] and clinical observations of Senator[23] and H. Strauss. Footnote 21: Brown-Séquard: Archives de physiologie norm. et path, p. 778, 1893. Footnote 22: E. Meyer: _Ibid._ p. 179, 1894. Footnote 23: Senator: Loc. cit. The liver, which, according to Gilbert, H. Strauss,[24] and others, is also a gland with an internal secretion, is strongly antagonistic to intestinal poisons. It destroys toxic products brought to it from the intestine through the portal vein, and several authors, Professor Adami, Sir Lauder Brunton and Bokenham,[25] show that it is also able to eliminate such products with the bile after previous transformation. We will treat of these protective functions of the liver in a separate chapter, together with the hygienics of this important organ; but we will just mention here that the liver plays a great rôle in the transformation of the toxic end-products of albuminous food into harmless substances, such as urea. Footnote 24: H. Strauss, Senator: Festschrift. Footnote 25: Sir Lauder Brunton and Bokenham: The Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology, p. 50, Nov., 1907. The third important toxin-destroying organ is the thyroid gland, which, as shown by the experiments of Dr. Leo Breisacher,[26] of Detroit, formerly assistant to Professor Munk, of Berlin, and of Dr. F. Blum,[27] of Frankfort, as well as Dr. Chalmers Watson,[28] of Edinburgh, destroys those poisonous substances produced by the decomposition of proteid food. Moreover, Sajous has shown that this is a prominent function of the pituitary body, the thyroid and the adrenals, acting jointly as the “adrenal system.” Footnote 26: Breisacher: Loc. cit. Footnote 27: Blum: Virchow’s Archiv, 1899. Footnote 28: Lancet, Feb. 11, 1905. It will be evident that these various glands can only do their work to perfection so long as their parenchymatous tissue is not replaced to any large extent by connective tissue. Of these glands the thyroid takes the foremost rank, as it governs the other glands. As we have shown in a communication to the French Congress of Medicine, in Liège, 1905, the thyroid influences the liver, and in a paper before the Paris Biological Society, February 25, 1907, we have shown that the thyroid also influences the kidneys. In fact, the liver and kidneys are closely allied to the thyroid, and when this organ is degenerated, the other two glands follow suit.