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The functions of the thoracic and abdominal organs seem to be normal, and death is generally due to some intercurrent disease, possibly tuberculosis. A condition akin to myxedema occurs after operative removal of the thyroid gland. In a most interesting lecture Brissaud shows the intimate relation between myxedema, endemic cretinism, sporadic cretinism, or myxedematous idiocy, and infantilism.
The disease was first described by Sir William Gull as a cretinoid change, and later by William Ord of London, who suggested the name. It is characterized clinically by a myxedematous condition of the subcutaneous tissues and mental failure, and anatomically by atrophy of the thyroid gland.
More than this if in adult life the gland is completely removed, or if it wastes, a somewhat similar condition is produced, and the patient in time loses his mental powers and becomes fat and flabby myxedematous.
It has been shown experimentally in various ways that the necessary elements of the secretion can be furnished by feeding with the gland or its extracts, and that the cretinoid or myxedematous conditions could thus be cured or prevented.
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