THE DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF THYE01D DISEASE AS CONTROLLED BY THE METABOLIC RATE

The metabolic rate of an individual indicates the rate of the heat production or energy transformation resulting from the chemical changes going on in the body when at complete physical and chemical rest. Metabolic rate studies, especially, have increased our knowledge of thyroid diseases. They have been the means of distinguishing hyperthyroidism from psychoneuroses, the exophthalmos of Graves’ disease from congenital eye prominence, toxic from non-toxic adenomas, and hyperthyroidism or myxedema from obesity and other conditions resembling such disturbances. The rate, when abnormal, means, in the absence of certain definite diseases and inanition, a disturbance of thyroid secretion. The metabolic rate studies, moreover, have afforded an opportunity to check up on the contention of Goetsch that his epinephrin test, when positive, indicates hyperthyroidism. It is now generally accepted that there can be no hyperthyroidism without an increased metabolic rate and since Peabody, Sturges, Tompkins, Wearn and o...