Old Age Deferred: The causes of old age and its postponement by hygienic and therapeutic measuresLorand, Arnold
Science
Old Age Deferred: The causes of old age and its postponement by hygienic and therapeutic measures
Lorand, Arnold
Hygiene; Longevity; Old age
It is only logical to suppose that with anatomo-pathological alterations
of the thyroid, indicating a condition of hyperactivity, there must be
corresponding clinical symptoms and that these must necessarily be
similar to those found in another condition of hyperactivity of the
thyroid gland—i.e., in Graves’s disease, the condition of
hyperthyroidia. And, indeed, such must be the case, for, as we shall try
to show, fever and Graves’s disease have similar clinical symptoms. Thus
their most typical symptom is the same: tachycardia or increased
frequency of the pulse, without which no case of Graves’s disease should
be diagnosed. There is a sensation of heat in most of the cases of
Graves’s disease, and the temperature sometimes reaches a dangerous
degree in fully developed cases of this disorder. Thirst, frequent in
fever, is also a frequent symptom in Graves’s disease (polydipsia in 14
out of 59 cases recorded by Albert Kocher[62]), and can also be produced
by thyroid feeding (Lanz,[63] Georgiewski,[64] and others). After a
certain duration of fever further symptoms of an increased activity of
the thyroid appear, such as abundant perspiration—a typical feature of
Graves’s disease. Vaso-dilatation and excessive perspiration can also be
produced by thyroid feeding. The latter symptom of fever is a device by
which nature tries to eliminate toxic products, and accordingly there
generally follows upon it a fall in the temperature and an amelioration
of the symptoms of fever. The diarrhœa which we find in some infectious
diseases, like that of typhoid fever, trypanosomiasis, etc., is also a
typical symptom in Graves’s disease. When the fever subsides there
appears another typical symptom of this condition: polyuria. To complete
this analogy we may mention toxic decomposition of proteins, diminution
in the body weight, great muscular weakness, and increased elimination
of urea and uric acid as typical symptoms of both conditions. As in
Graves’s disease, there is also in fever an augmentation of the
processes of oxidation. Glycosuria is frequent in both conditions, and
acetonuria may occur in fever and also in Graves’s disease. Glycosuria
and diabetes in consequence of infectious diseases are, as we have shown
in a paper read before the London Pathological Society,[65] probably due
to the increased activity of the thyroid, and their disappearance,
occasionally after a high fever, may be ascribed to the exhaustion of
the thyroid after a previous hyperactivity. We know that a condition of
Graves’s disease may be followed by a myxœdematous condition in which,
as we have shown previously, glycosuria is very rare. In the few
hitherto published cases there was no complete myxœdema.
Footnote 62:
A. Kocher: “Mittheilungen aus den Grenzgebeiten,” etc., 1901.
Footnote 63:
Lanz: Quoted after Buschau, Wein, 1895.
Footnote 64:
Georgiewski: Zeitschrift für klin. Medicin, Bd., xxxiii, f. 1-2, p.
153, 1897.
Footnote 65:
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