Some time ago, Dr. Philip Cohen and I studied the effect of thyroid therapy on children,1 and found that thyroid extract in small or moderate doses did not increase the basal metabolic rate of children whose initial basal metabolic rate was normal. When the basal metabolism was subnormal, thyroid extract even in very small doses caused an increase in it. At the same time it was noticed that the children who had been receiving thyroid extract showed an unusual increase in growth during the period of therapy.
Since the publication of these results, I have had the opportunity to study further the effects of thyroid therapy on children, and this paper presents my observations.
Sixteen children were studied over a period of from three months to two years. Unfortunately, the district in which our hospital stands has been rapidly changing from a Jewish to a Porto Rican population, and