Incipient Hypothyroidism

The thyroid gland is the best understood member of the endocrine system, and, on account of its accessibility for extirpation experiments and other observations, its functions are fairly well established. The greater part of the literature on the thyroid deals with clinical entities resulting from an overactive gland, and it has been only in comparatively recent years that its underactive potentialities have been given serious consideration. In 1874, Gull published his classic monograph, On a Cretinoid State Supervening in the Adult Life of Women. Eleven years later, Schiff successfully transplanted the thyroid gland into the abdominal wall and initiated the treatment of thyroid insufficiency by feeding the desiccated glands. In 1895, Magnus-Levy 1 demonstrated the ability of thyroid preparations to raise the rate of both oxygen and carbon dioxid exchange through the lungs, and in 1904, he 2 pointed out the principles of interrelationship between thyroid activity and basal metabolism.