Not content with just wishing you all the very best, I offer a tiny token to you all.
The 1907 British Pharmaceutical Codex has details of how animal thyroids are to be prepared. (Maybe, if you are of a sensitive disposition, you won't want to read the document at all?)
The old-fashioned use of Latin names for lots of things in medicine and science is very annoying. To my modern eyes it reeks of pomposity and elitism. It's a way of separating the undeserving from the deserving in terms of disseminating knowledge. Girls and the poor were rarely taught Latin in Victorian times or before.
The link was very interesting despite the Latin.
Anyway, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, helvella, and to all other members of the forum.
The upper crust ones did do a lot of flower illustration (deemed suitable for the weaker sex..sigh) and they must have known the appropriate latin names but I agree it has been used as a way of keeping others out. It does avoid arguments over what living language should be the universally accepted one for scientists I guess.
The whole document is very interesting. It really struck me that that tone suggests trying to treat illness and get people better. In sharp contrast to contemporary medical documents!
I particularly liked the list of conditions which thyroid gland can treat. I think all of it we'd agree with today, but current medicine seems to have forgotten.
'Old Wives Tales' might have been a lot better than taking the TSH alone as a guide to how much replacement hormones we need. No blood tests then, just small increases until symptoms resolved.
Well if the NHS are going to be able to make their own medicines they have the recipe for NDT right here! If my pal can have bits of pig heart put into him on the NHS (no need for warfarin for life) why can't I have NDT? One rule for one lot of patients and another for us
The change to porcine was at least partly due to time of year.
Whereas we now have ready access to freezers, and various forms of cooling (think ice house) have existed for a long time, freezing was not widely available at the time.
So, seasonal availability was a major issue. And pigs are far more even in availability than sheep (or cattle). Pigs can breed at any time of year.
Further, and I do not know if the writers of these items knew this, the levels of thyroid hormone are more even in pigs than most other domestic animals.
I wish I knew where Sarah Vine gets her NDT ... I am thinking of contacting her at The Daily Mail and seeing if she will do an article about thyroid disease as she is a sufferer and also has hair replacement at Lucinda Ellery's for her baldness.
Good idea about some publicity and I bet thousands of struggling hypo patients will be pleased to have some 'good publicity and a change of heart' by the medical profession to allow doctors to prescribe what the patient needs and not be restricted to one that doesn't improve their health.
I have a couple of lambs ready to go in the freezer. I now have a recipe and I already have a bottle of glycerine....(for chapped teats - the cows, not me!). I am SO tempted!
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