STUDIES ON THE PINEAL GLAND: II. CLINICAL OBSERVATIONS

INTRODUCTORY  The clinical aspects of pineal tumors have been abundantly discussed since 1909, when Frankl-Hochwart¹⁹ suggested the possibility of a pathognomonic syndrome. Marburg⁴⁰ especially has developed the subject, emphasizing the association of adiposity, which he regards as an indication of overfunctioning of the gland. To this we shall return in the discussion of one of the cases here reported. The salient factors of pineal symptomatology may be gleaned from the reports of about seventy cases of tumor of the gland. Of this number only twenty-two occurred before the age of puberty and these, therefore, represent the source of evidence of that special train of symptoms which we have come to associate with pineal disorders, namely, premature development in the realm of both primary and secondary sexual characters. In several of these cases, moreover, principally in the earlier reported ones, the case records are insufficient