E. T. Kocher 1909 Recipient of Nobel Prize in ... - Thyroid UK

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E. T. Kocher 1909 Recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the Thyroid

gabkad profile image
28 Replies

Lecture given after receiving the prize. It's pretty long but he's got all the information on the various ways in which the body is affected. So basically it's all there since more than 100 years ago. Worth reading.

nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes...

The PDF of Kocher's lecture may now be found here:

nobelprize.org/prizes/medic...

[ Edited by admin to add new link as original appears no longer to be functioning. ]

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gabkad profile image
gabkad
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28 Replies
helvella profile image
helvellaAdministratorThyroid UK

Funny how many now dismiss desiccated thyroid:

Seldom in the history of medicine has the recognition of the most effective cure followed as swiftly on the heels of the discovery of a disease, as the establishment of the complete effectiveness of iodothyrin and thyroidin followed the recognition of cachexia thyreopriva.

Referring to all our endocrine glands, he wrote:

But no internal secretion exceeds that of the thyroid in importance to the whole organism.

CCSP-27 profile image
CCSP-27

Thank you for that ! When the Thyroid foggy head thing clears - I'll read it properly 👍

Research is my middle name 😉

Treepie profile image
Treepie

Scanned,fascinating . Two items stood out for me : that doctors then were as slow as many now to identify the disease and the reference to being out of breath going up hill .Something I suffer every day as I take a walk that goes up a steep hill.

shaws profile image
shawsAdministrator in reply to Treepie

Treepie you have to look again at your thyroid hormones. NDT may be better for you if on levo alone. Breathlessness is a clinical symptom of too low a dose or needing other than levothyroxine.

Doctors nowadays aren't clinicians as they don't understand what essential work thyroid hormones do in our body other than look at the TSH. They are ignorant altogether about thyroid hormones and the necessity for an optimum dose for a healthy and painfree life. Even some T3 added to T4 may make a huge difference.

Treepie profile image
Treepie in reply to shaws

Shaws, Thanks for that advice .I am on levo only ,the GP offered to increase the dose in February but maybe foolishly I suggested waiting until a further Blue Horizon test in May/ June as I wanted to be sure it was not the cold weather that was increasing the TSH and lowering F T3 and FT 4 . I suspect the cause is most likely that I had to increase the beta blockers to get more or less painlessly up that hill!

I tried Thiroid S but it did not suit me , perhaps took too much too soon.

Will probably get increase in Levo first if GP has not changed his mind by then .If that does not work out I will post request for safe T3 supplier.

Thanks again.

shaws profile image
shawsAdministrator in reply to Treepie

You have to cursor down this link to read about the Heart.

stopthethyroidmadness.com/h...

Treepie profile image
Treepie in reply to shaws

Thanks again. My angina type pains were on the wrong side of the body for angina.Tests showed I have " irregular veins" !

shaws profile image
shawsAdministrator in reply to Treepie

I have never heard of that expression - irregular veins. angina pains wouldn't have been comfortable either whatever side of your chest was having them.

Treepie profile image
Treepie in reply to shaws

Seemed like a cop out! I took it as meaning not smooth and with 'kinks' that might slow blood flow. Started with 1.25 mg beta blocker increased to 5mg and no longer pain in arm when going up steep hill just a little ache in chest occasionally.

Dr Joan Gomez wrote a book years ago on thyroid and mentioned levo causing angina type pains" easily treated with beta blockers" .

shaws profile image
shawsAdministrator in reply to Treepie

levo might well cause angina type pains, in that case you shouldn't take it. T3 only or NDT would probably be the better bet.

You shouldn't have to take beta-blockers because levo is causing angina pain.

(I am not medically qualified0.

Treepie profile image
Treepie in reply to shaws

It was clearly a common enough consequence to be noted by G.P. Dr .Gomez but not seen mentioned anywhere else.

gabkad profile image
gabkad in reply to Treepie

It's not the safest thing in the world, but have you ever tried gingko biloba? It helps with intermittent claudication.

Treepie profile image
Treepie in reply to gabkad

Not for a long while before hypo,just thrown out a pack " use by 2007" !

gabkad profile image
gabkad in reply to Treepie

But in those days you didn't have this problem. Might be worth a 2 week trial.

Treepie profile image
Treepie in reply to gabkad

Maybe, supposed to be good for old folk like I am now. The tree has a very long life.

dang profile image
dang in reply to gabkad

What's not safe about gingko? My doctor had me on the highest dose possible for months I was unaware of any dangers.

gabkad profile image
gabkad in reply to dang

It's a blood thinner. If you need to have any surgery, you need to tell the surgeon and stop using for a while.

dang profile image
dang in reply to gabkad

Ah ok thanks!

Eddie83 profile image
Eddie83 in reply to Treepie

Keep in mind that many beta-blockers are thyroid suppressants. Specifically, I know that propanolol (the only BB I have used) is a thyroid suppressant. Low FT3 causes breathlessness in many patients; it sure did for me.

MS58 profile image
MS58 in reply to Eddie83

Ummm that's very interesting !

Raventhorpe profile image
Raventhorpe

Hi gabkad thanks for sharing this, I never knew that they knew all this 100yrs ago. Some of the gp's of today should read this and may be they would learn that there is alot more to the thyroid than they think especially when they say alot of your symptoms can't be due to the thyroid and give you antidepressants instead of treating your thyroid.

silverfox7 profile image
silverfox7

Thanks for posting. Will read properly when not on phone. I got a ingling yearsxago as it was my husband's research topic but I didn't have a problem then but to me it's common sense as it affects all the body then it can manifest itself with different symptoms. Thankfully babies are screened at birth but I think adults should be as well at regular intervals but there again we need all medics to understand how to interpret results and how to treat it. I still can't get my head around the fact that no one seems to realise the importance of testing FT3!

CSmithLadd profile image
CSmithLadd

Thank you so much for this gem! Everyone here should read every single word. Amazing stuff that truly helps make sense of how frustratingly difficult it is for conventional doctors to ever "get it." It's not rocket science, but attributed to the fact that any "one size fits all" method does not and never will produce positive results. Loved it. Going to read all over again!

gabkad profile image
gabkad in reply to CSmithLadd

He uses some out of date expressions but that's what google is for.

CSmithLadd profile image
CSmithLadd in reply to gabkad

LOL I'm a bit ashamed to admit I understood each and every one of those sayings. Yes, most they are pretty much older than dirt. And no, I'm not that old! Ha!

Hugs to you, gabkad!!

gabkad profile image
gabkad in reply to CSmithLadd

:)

tattybogle profile image
tattybogle

This is well worth a read. From 1909 ! I'm astonished at the accuracy of his observations ,,, he describes some of my symptoms perfectly , right down to my low lymphocytes...

(our doctors have obviously never read it) original link no longer works , but this one does . nobelprize.org/uploads/2018...

(I note that a certain Mr Ord was mentioned at this meeting .. which was 3 years before Hashimoto described his findings in 1912 )

"..... But no internal secretion exceeds that of the thyroid in importance to the whole organism.

Are doctors now making use of the newly won province of physiological therapeutics to the extent that it deserves?

Emphatically not.

The reason for this is that, even at the present moment, the fully developed picture of cachexia thyreopriva is still not sufficiently well known to every doctor for him to recognize it immediately in every case.

I see a number of patients who are treated for anaemia, chlorosis, scrofulosis, nervousness and menstrual disorders, in which the signs of thyroid insufficiency strike the practised eye at one glance .

But there is still another important reason which makes the diagnosis more difficult.

In mild and limited thyroid disorders, where function is not abolished, but merely impaired, only very rarely do the symptoms of cachexia thyreopriva stand out clearly, and for this reason either have no attention paid to them at all or are misinterpreted.

And yet only the right knowledge and the physiological therapy based on it produce real cures.

For this reason I would like, on the strength of extensive observations, to undertake to draw attention to poorly defined forms of cachexia thyreopriva which are found in limited and moderate thyroid disease ..... "

tattybogle profile image
tattybogle in reply to tattybogle

Just putting a face to the name ......

found it in here . which is a fascinating history of thyroid/parathyroid surgery (not for the squemish ) entokey.com/history-of-thyr...

Theodore Kocher 1912

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