Endocrinology

Endocrinology is a branch of medicine that deals with the disorders of the endocrine system and also deals with specific secretions called hormones. This involves disorders such as diabetes mellitus, hyperthyroidism, and other similar problems.

The origins of endocrinology come from the discovery that all multicellular organisms need to have a system to regulate and integrate the functioning of cells. To do this, especially in higher animals, the nervous system and the endocrine system are both used. For the latter, the body releases, usually into the blood, chemical agents that are essential for the proper development and function of organisms. This was first realized by some thinkers of the classical world such as the Greeks, Aristotle and Hippocrates, and the Romans, Lucretius, Celsus, and Galen. However, these tended to emphasize the influence of “humors,” and it was not until the 19th century that pathologists and others came up with a more detailed knowledge of the endocrine system. As a result, the branch of medicine known as endocrinology was developed whereby doctors and medical researchers deal with biosynthesis, storage, body chemistry, and the physiological function of hormones and with the cells of the endocrine glands and also tissues that secrete hormones into the glands.

The development of research into endocrinology has seen researchers being involved in the diagnostic evaluation of a large number of symptoms and variations that occur between different people, and tabulate these to work out a long-term management of disorders which come from either a deficiency or an excess of a particular hormone. The most common field in which endocrinologists are involved is that of treating people with diabetes mellitus, first in diagnosing the presence of the disorder and then working out the most suitable way that people can manage it.

An early French endocrinologist was Antoine Lacassagne who studied under Marie Curie, and worked heavily with radium. However, the study of it on a scientific level began with Arnold Adolph Berthold in the 1840s, and was developed by Charles Edouard Brown-Séquard. The pioneer of endocrinology in the United States was Harvey Williams Cushing (eponym of Cushing's syndrome) who was involved in the removal of a portion of the anterior lobe of the pituitary, being shown to be a successful way of treating acromegaly. In [Page 601]1916, P. E. Smith and Bennet Allen reported separately about the fact that pituitary surgery could result in a diminished growth rate and reduce the function of the thyroid gland. As interest in endocrinology mounted, it was decided to form what became the Endocrine Society. It was founded on June 4, 1917, as the Association for the Study of Internal Secretions. The certificate of incorporation was filed on January 13, 1918, and the society gained its present name on January 1, 1952. It has held annual meetings since 1916 (with the exception of 1943 and 1945), and has published Endocrinology since January 1917. It has also published the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology, which predates the society, having published its first issue in 1914. On January 1, 1952, it became The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

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