The Parathyroid Glands: Ultrastructure, Secretion, and Function

The past 15 years have seen a revolution in the scientific basis of endocrinology. During most of this time parathyroid physiology and calcium metabolism were the poor stepchildren of the field. That this is no longer the case is amply demonstrated by the present volume. In few fields has it been possible to ask so may fundamental questions (as was done at the First Parathyroid Symposium, 1960) and find them substantially answered a scant four years later. The amount of progress made during this period truly merits the term "explosion" which Franklin McLean applys to the field of parathyroid research in his excellent introduction to this volume. This book represents the Proceedings of the Second International Sympsoium on the Parathyroid Glands held in the Netherlands in August 1964. The importance of the work collected here can be best appreciated from a consideration of the problems which retarded parathyroid research during