Hereditary hypoplasia in man, due to degeneracy : the underlying basis of those cases having a hereditary origin, and the relation of this underlying cause to the functional neuroses, tuberculosis, infections and immunity / Charles P. Noble.

  • Noble, Charles P. (Charles Percy), 1863-1935.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Hereditary hypoplasia in man, due to degeneracy : the underlying basis of those cases having a hereditary origin, and the relation of this underlying cause to the functional neuroses, tuberculosis, infections and immunity / Charles P. Noble. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    patients to study from the standpoint of a student of natural science. I did so, and he reported his findings in about twenty of them. The report was that their osseous systems were undeveloped, their frames as much like men as like women—that is, they were neuters— that their crania were undeveloped, that they had high- arched palates, that their vocal chords were ill devel- oped, and that such people could not be singers. He also recognized the fact that their nervous system was ill developed, but he stopped with birth and'called the condition congenital. But it is evident that the only way to do anything with these people, practically, i- along the lines of nutrition and hygiene, and so for twenty years I have treated this group, and then the dropped kidney group, along these lines. The word “congenital” was the stumbling-block. Dr. Allen and I each recognized that the trouble was developmental, and a hypoplasia, but we thought that the trouble was primary in the nervous system and exerted its influejice through the trophic nerves, those controlling nutrition, resulting in malnutrition and arrested development. I have long noticed that in this group of women it is very common to have leucorrhea, and have taught that this, when the discharge is thin in character, comes from the endometrium, and is due to malnutrition and not due to local disease. I failed, however, to appre- ciate what I believe is the fact, namely, that this is just the same condition as that previously discussed, that it is due to a hypoplasia of the cells of the endometrium so that they fail to functionate normally and are sub- ject to degenerative changes in structure. Is it not the underlying cause of so-called glandular hypertrophy of the endometrium, and is not this the same pathologic condition found in the throat and called adenoids and diseased tonsils, and does not this theory explain this group of debilitated women, and also all the children who are not vigorous, and who get adenoids and dis- eased tonsils and become mouth-breathers? Now how are we to differentiate the defective chil- dren, those in whom puberty is delayed, those with vis- ceral ptoses, with consumption, with neuroses of hered- itary developmental origin, from those in whom it is acquired? By eliciting the family history and by look- ing for the stigmata of degeneracy, particularly, be- cause this is the easiest, for the high-arched palate of