Mr Julian Huxley's account of experiments by himself and others
with the thyroid gland, which appeared in the Daily Mail on Wednesday, is far more wonderful than the romantic per- versions of the matter which had found currency. It has been known for twenty years or more that this little gland in the neck regulates growth, and that it is deficient in imbeciles. Mr. Huxley has found that thyroid extract, if administered to the lower animals, stimulates their development in an astonishing way. Thus the small tadpole transforms itself prematurely into a frog, whereas, if its thyroid is removed, it remains a tad- pole. Thyroxin, a substance which has been isolated from the thyroid, and which has also—this is a remarkable fact—been made by synthesis from inorganic chemicals, exerts " a most powerful effect " on men. Thus a dose of a milligram causes a man to work, chemically speaking, two per cent. more quickly than before. The ulterior effects of such a dose remain to be studied. Mr. Huxley's article confirms the belief, suggested by Professor Arthur Keith's recent paper on the interstitial and other glands, that the biologist and chemist working on these minute and obscure portions of the body may be on the eve of epoch-making discoveries as to the nature of life.
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