CLINICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF DYSFUNCTION OF THE ANTERIOR PITUITARY

Excerpt

Correct conceptions in almost every phase of the whole field of medicine rest on advances in experimental physiology. Belief in this view has been so well justified by the achievements of the last century that one may well claim the actual inauguration of modern medicine by the life work of such an investigator as Claude Bernard.

Endocrinology, a more or less well recognized clinical specialty, already possesses in some portions of its realm sufficiently precise and quantitative procedures for diagnosis and therapy, but in its other territories such tools are frequently so wofully lacking as to have led to a widespread feeling of insecurity in the field as a whole. Not only has a clinic of endocrine diseases been born in the last few decades, but a host of skilfully contrived and fruitful laboratory studies has been given to the world; the present moment is an appropriate one for inquiry