Much effort has been expended in the construction of a classification of the diseases of the thyroid gland which would be acceptable to the pathologist and surgeon. Each has worked largely from his own point of view. The result has been that the pathologist's product has been wholly inapplicable to the clinic and the practical man's product has paid scant attention to the requirements of scientific terminology.
The most generally accepted classification divides goiters into the adolescent, the colloid, the nontoxic adenomas, the toxic adenomas and, finally, the exophthalmic type with or without eye signs. This classification has a certain advantage in that it emphasizes certain prominent clinical groups. It is faulty in that it suggests that these groups represent separate diseases, or at least, separate disease states. It is further at fault in that it employs pathologic terms of doubtful applicability and in part employs eponyms, always objectionable in