 The discovery and subsequent description of the parathyroid glands is credited to Ivar Sandstrom , though his publication , On a New Gland in Man and Several Mammals @-@ Glandulae Parathyroideae , received little attention . Gustaf Retzius and Eugene Gley compounded his research , the latter credited with the discovery of the function of the parathyroid glands . This research cumulated in the first surgical removal of a parathyroid tumor by Felix Mandel in 1925 . A 2 @.@ 5 × 1 @.@ 5 @-@ inch ( 64 × 38 mm ) tumor was removed from the thyroid artery of a man suffering from advanced OFC . The patient 's symptoms disappeared , only to return in approximately six years as a result of renal stones that were diagnosed only after the patient had died . In 1932 , blood tests on a female patient suffering from renal stone @-@ based OFC revealed extremely high blood calcium levels . Fuller Albright diagnosed and treated the woman , who suffered from a large tumor of the neck as well as renal stones . 
