The Glands Regulating Personality: A Study of the Glands of Internal Secretion in Relation to the Types of Human NatureBerman, Louis
History
The Glands Regulating Personality: A Study of the Glands of Internal Secretion in Relation to the Types of Human Nature
Berman, Louis
Endocrinology; Personality
The internal secretions influence the amount and duration of the
memory deposits. The thyroid appears to be essential to the _laying
down_ of the memory trace. Cretins have poor memories on the retention
side and so cannot learn. The memory of thyroid insufficients is
wretched. In the extreme grades, the memory for recent occurrences
becomes completely lost. Iodine and thyroid increase the electric
conductivity of the brain, so that the memory trace must be deposited
more easily in those who have an excess of thyroid. Removal of the
thyroid produces a degeneration of nerve cells and their processes,
and associative memory becomes difficult or impossible because
conduction from cell to cell is interfered with. If sufficient thyroid
is fed in excess, brain conduction may be so facilitated that epilepsy
may result upon slight irritation.
On the other hand, the pituitary seems to be related to _preservation_
of the memory deposit. In conditions of disease of the pituitary,
loss of memory for past experiences is more marked. As regards recent
experiences, they are better held, although in a sort of subconscious
manner, recoverable when the condition improves or is cured. But the
greatest difference between the thyroid and pituitary effects upon
memory exists as regards material: the thyroid memory applies
particularly to perception and percepts, the pituitary to conception
(reading, studying, thinking) and concepts.
Judgment is another mental process that often intervenes between
sensation and the energy-reaction. It involves memory and association
of experiences. Behind it is an attitude as much as there is in an
emotion or the arousing of an instinct. Beliefs and reasonings are
complex judgments. They form the units of the intellectual process.
There is an element of speed in judgment on reasoning as in perception
and memory. And as in the latter, the thyroid determines the velocity.
Quick thinking, as we call it, means good thyroid action, and slow
thinking deficient thyroid action. The other element in judgment,
accuracy, is influenced by the ante-pituitary. During adolescence
there is physical growth which consumes most of the secretion of the
ante-pituitary. After adolescence, after the early twenties, when
physical growth has ceased, the ante-pituitary secretion sensitizes
the cells of the brain to mental growth. The reaction potential of
the ante-pituitary, that is its inherent, latent ability to supply a
maximum of its endocrine for the nerve cells of the frontal lobes, is
the best-known chemical determinant of intellectual genius. It makes
for the greatest co-ordination of experience, knowledge, information,
tastes and problems into one harmonious whole. And curiously, not only
does it cause a fusion of intellectual material: it creates a desire
for and a love of such material.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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