CACHEXIA HYPOPHYSEOPRIVA (SIMMOND’S DISEASE) WITH THYROID AND SUPRARENAL INSUFFICIENCY1

Abstract

The syndrome of pituitary cachexia has been so completely described and the literature concerning it so thoroughly reviewed in the recent American literature by Silver (1) and Calder (2) that a detailed description of it is unnecessary here. The disease, briefly, is characterized by progessive weight loss and cachexia, loss of libido and potentia, falling of axillary and pubic hair, premature menopause, decrease in basal metabolism, trophic changes in the skin and mental torpor with frequent terminal coma accompanied by hyperpyrexia. Eosinophilia and gastrointestinal disturbances with achlorhydria are not uncommon. Women are affected more frequently than men (about 70 per cent of reported cases) and the symptoms often begin insidiously after a prolonged or difficult labor. The course is chronic, sometimes extending over many years. The primary lesion involves the anterior pituitary; it may be due to a nonspecific atrophy or fibrosis, the degenerative phase of an adenoma or other neoplasm, cysts, tuberculo...