Medicine: Physicians in Philadelphia

Sixteen hundred select U. S. doctors who belong to the American College of Physicians saluted a tidy-minded scholar by giving Professor Leo Loeb of Washington University Medical School (St. Louis) a gold medal during their annual meeting in Philadelphia last week. Small, frail, sombre, he rose from his seat to accept the medal, big as his palm, and in return to tell the College a simple chain of endocrine events which may lead to a simple cure for the ugly form of goitre called Graves’s Disease. The thyroid may not be appreciably enlarged in a case of Graves’s Disease. But in all cases the eyes bulge. In extreme cases the eyes may pop out of their sockets.

Professor Loeb found that the cause of this bulging was not in the individual’s thyroid itself, although the thyroid was overworking as hard as any goitrous thyroid. By systematically shuffling the hormones of many creatures, he found that the seat of Graves’s Disease is in the pituitary gland, a chestnut-sized nugget lying midway between the temples. Through its many hormones the pituitary in one way or another manages the activities of practically all the other ductless glands. One of the pituitary’s hormones, Professor Loeb found, specifically excites the thyroid and causes the eyes of a victim of Graves’s Disease to bulge. With the specific hormone known, endocrinologists at once set themselves to invent ways of restraining its influence.

Professor Loeb’s disquisition was the highlight among many significant reports, all of which the College will print in its Annals of Internal Medicine during the next year. Some other reports:

Hormonal Personalities. Dr. Walter Freeman, grandson of Philadelphia’s late great nonogenarian Dr. William Williams Keen, practices neuropsychiatry in Washington. He dissected 1,400 lunatics after their deaths to find out what effects, if any, their endocrine glands may have had upon their distorted personalities. He also studied the personalities of several hundred normal characters who suffered from hormonal disturbances of the pituitary, thyroid, adrenals, sex glands, etc. After all that work Dr. Freeman concluded that hormones have a preponderant role in the total energy output of an individual as well as in the harmonious functioning of his nervous system. He found little evidence that a person’s endocrine glands determine the type of his personality.

Internal Myxedema. Among the common signs of a thyroid gland functioning under par are: cold, dry, rough and puffy skin; coarse, dry hair which falls out; apathetic emotions; sluggish mind. But those external signs of myxedema (atrophy of the thyroid) may be absent and internal disorders take their place. That possible inversion of symptoms is so little known that Dr. Hans Lisser of San Francisco made a stir by showing that a person’s lazy insides may be prodded by thyroid treatment. Dr. Lisser’s most remarkable patient suffered from ascites (abdominal dropsy); flaccid heart, intestines and bladder; profuse menstrual bleeding; secondary anemia. Iron for the anemia, thyroid extract for the other “capricious vagaries” brought, said Dr. Lisser, “magical relief.”

First Sign of Palsy. Paralysis agitans, or shaky palsy, is ordinarily an affliction of old age. But often it follows an attack of inflammation of the brain. To help detect the earliest signs of this palsy and combat it, Dr. Abraham Maurice Ornsteen of Philadelphia offered a suggestion which anyone can try in his own living room. The suspect holds both hands before his face, with all fingers clenched except fore finger and thumb. He then rapidly pats each forefinger against each thumb. Normally, the twitching is symmetrical in the two hands. In the abnormal state “one notes a definite limitation of agility.”

Smarties’ Chests. Twenty thousand Minneapolis school children marched up to Dr. Samuel Arthur Weisman a few years ago and let him measure their chests, heights, weights. Those with the broadest, flattest chests were the biggest and heaviest. Since reaching that conclusion, Dr. Weisman collected the school grades of 15,000 of the children and found that the biggest, broad-chested ones made the best grades. The narrow, pigeon-chested ones, even when they were sturdy, were the poorest students.

Use for Afterbirths. Practically all animals, including some primitive women, eat their own afterbirths. The practice apparently is good for the mother and probably, through her milk, for the child. Dr. Charles Fremont McKhann Jr. of Boston gave such placentophagy a new twist and a sound scientific basis by extracting substances from placentas, with which he inoculates children against measles. He also expects to extract sub stance to immunize against scarlet fever, diphtheria, infantile paralysis.

Rheumatic Fever & Spinach. Dr. James Fleece Rinehart of San Francisco found new ailments which attack human beings unless they load themselves with spinach and other sources of Vitamin C. One of the diseases is rheumatic fever, dread disease which sometimes leaves the hearts of children so leaky that all the rest of their lives they must avoid exertion. The other disease is rheumatoid arthritis (swelling and pain in the joints, particularly in the knees, elbows, wrists). That streptococci most probably cause rheumatic fever has long been suspected. Dr. Charles William Wainwright of Baltimore offered evidence that the streptococcus also is responsible for rheumatism in the joints. In any case children who eat spinach diligently will probably escape the fever and heart disease, grown-ups who do likewise will probably escape the rheumatism. This seems so whether 1) Vitamin C enables the body to kill streptococci after they get into the system, or 2) the presence of Vitamin C prevents streptococci from taking hold of man or child.

Arthritis. Dr. Ralph Pemberton of Philadelphia gave this advice both to those who suffer from atrophic arthritis (affliction of youngish people) and hypertrophic arthritis (affliction of old people): “About 80% of persons suffering from chronic arthritis should be greatly relieved and, if the bony changes have not gone too far, actual cure is often possible [by general therapy]. There is no short cut to this goal, and the patient must be able to supply the necessary pertinacity, patience and cooperation, especially in long standing cases, if he is to emerge on a new plane of health.”

Hair Tonic & Liver. Taking up the observation of Dr. Jesse Louis Bollman of Rochester, Minn. that carbon tetrachloride (dry cleaning fluid) will cause cirrhosis of the liver, especially if the liver is fat, Dr. B. B. Vincent Lyon of Philadelphia reported a case of a man who developed cirrhosis of the liver after using hair tonic which contained carbon tetrachloride. Dr. Lyon neglected to report what the tonic did for the patient’s hair.

Hyperinsulinism. Excessive use of candy, syrup, desserts and soft drinks, excessive use of coffee and alcoholic beverages,, or a tumor of the pancreas may cause hyperinsulinism (excess of insulin). The individual eats & eats, grows fat, eventually may develop diabetes from sheer exhaustion of the natural insulin which his pancreas can manufacture. If there is a tumor, it must come out. If sweets and drink cause the hyperinsulinism and voracity, diet will cure it. The diet which Dr. Scale Harris of Birmingham suggested: “Three small meals a day, with milk and a banana or orange juice every two or three hours between meals. Beer, wine, cocktails, highballs are particularly harmful.”

Heart Disease & Diabetes. “Cardiovascular disease is now the most important complication of diabetes and is the major cause of death.”—Dr. Israel Mordecai Rabinowitch of Montreal. Dr. Rabinowitch found that he could prevent in some youngsters who suffered from diabetes and delay in others the degeneration of heart disease and hardening of the arteries by feeding them foods relatively rich in carbohydrates and poor in calories.

Kidneys & Diabetes. Individuals who have diabetes tend to develop hardening of the arteries and high blood pressure, but “it is striking that in diabetes as a group, death primarily due to kidney failure is a rarity.”—Dr. Howard Frank Root of Boston.