Abstract
THIS is an interesting and useful book. The author has made an extensive survey of the clinical conditions that can be attributed to malfunctioning of the endocrine organs, and has based his observations upon a reasoned picture of the "physiology and pathology of the neuro-endocrine systems". The introductory part of the book, which deals with this basic information, begins with a discussion of the concept of hormonal action and of the present trend for endocrinology to find its main links in the general field of metabolism. The rest of the introductory section is devoted to a general description of the "neuro-endocrine systems" of which the derivatives of the branchial pouches are part ; of the neuro-metabolic systems based upon the gonads and the adrenals ; and of those based upon the pituitary and pineal. By "system" Dr. Cawadias does not mean that a given endocrine substance is responsible for a series of changes that are part of a pattern of wider change which is influenced by the whole endocrine system. The term is used to emphasize the point that the endocrine organs work in a system with such neural structures as the hypothalamus, and that the latter in turn may be influenced by psychogenic factors. When he talks, for example, of the thyro-hormone system as being part of the neuro-endocrine system, he has in mind that cortical influences can affect the hypothalamus ; the hypothalamus the anterior lobe of the pituitary ; and the anterior lobe the thyroid ; and that the whole thyroid system can be activated from any of these centres.
Clinical Endocrinology and Constitutional Medicine
By Dr. A. P. Cawadias. Pp. xii + 368 + 10 plates. (Londons: Frederick Muller, Ltd., 1947.) 42s. net.
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Clinical Endocrinology and Constitutional Medicine. Nature 162, 512 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/162512a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/162512a0