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Also a train of symptoms similar to those evoked by an oversecretion of the thyroid may be mobilized by the taking of too much iodine. Great sorrow, great joy, a sudden severe jolt to the nervous equilibrium, sexual excitement, an overwhelming anger or grief may leave in their wake a permanent hyperthyroidism. The symptoms are the reverse of cretinism and myxedema.
Over these, the essential control lies in the pituitary and the thyroid. So we find that pituitary types have, when there is oversecretion, large bony, gross hands, spade-shaped, or when there is undersecretion, hands that are plump, with peculiarly tapering fleshy fingers. The hyperthyroid has long slender fingers, the subthyroid pudgy, coarse, ugly foreshortened hands, often cold, and bluish.
These, like human covenants, vary with the different reactions of the parties to the contract. And so a great deal depends upon whether they work harmoniously or discordantly, and upon which does the most work and which the least. Undersecretion and Oversecretion
There are losses of balance, so that when one gland ceases secreting, another will simultaneously or soon after. Normal secretion, oversecretion or undersecretion are thus adjusted, but leave a train of after effects. So with loss or insufficiency of the thyroid, there may be pituitary overgrowth, because the pituitary may act as vicar for the thyroid.
An abnormal process in the anterior gland, whether of oversecretion or of undersecretion, may interfere with the proper functioning of the posterior gland, the secretion of which is tonic not only to the brain cells, but also to the sex cells. Thus, young animals deprived of the pituitary will not, if male, grow spermatozoa, nor ripe ova in the female.
An Italian, Bossi, in 1907, used adrenal gland curatively. More recently, a British student of the subject, Blair Bell, was given the direction of the treatment, at long range, of a number of cases in India, the land of chronic pregnancy with insufficient food, and consequent oversecretion of the ovaries, with the typical softening of the bones. At his suggestion pituitary was used successfully.
That some poison, probably an oversecretion of the thymus, is responsible is shown by the relief obtainable by X-ray shrinkage of the gland, or the surgical removal of a part of it. Moreover, the gland is influenced by and influences the factors of body weight and growth with an extreme readiness and lability. Deficient general undernutrition leads to rapid decline in its weight.
A general reaction all along the line will accompany overaction, oversecretion, of one gland.
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