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
Among women, the adrenal type is always masculinoid. If physically
feminine--due to adequate feminine reactions on the part of the
other endocrines--she will at least show the qualities of a psychic
virilism. A generation ago, such a woman had to repress her inherent
trends and instincts in the face of public opinion and law, and so
suffered from a feeling of inferiority. Nowadays, these women are
striding forward and will attain a good many of the masculine heights,
commanding responsible executive positions and high salaries. An
adrenal type will probably be the first woman president of the United
States.
However, that presupposes a normal range of action of the other
endocrines. Let there be some quirk or weakness elsewhere in the
chain of hormones, and instead of the successful woman, behold
the spinsters, the maiden aunts, the prudes and cranks who never
satisfactorily adapt themselves in society. To them must be given
a good deal of credit for the suffrage revolution. These unadapted
adrenals, as we may call them, once sowed the seeds, expending their
masculinism in the struggles of the pioneers' martyrdoms, preparing
the harvest their sisters, the more adequate adrenal types, will now
reap. The unadapted adrenals of today will have to look for new worlds
to conquer.
So much for the compensated adrenal types. They are the good workers,
the efficients, the kinetic successes of the driven world. They make,
at a certain level, good slave drivers because they feel within
themselves a driving force. But suppose the adrenal type becomes
uncompensated, or perhaps is inadequate to the demands of life to
start with. Then the story becomes different. The perfect efficient
superman of business or profession begins to lag. Though he is himself
in the morning, he begins to lag in the afternoon. That is when he
tires. In the evening he is all in. More sleep, recreational trips,
vacations slip into the rank of necessities, whereas previously they
had been laughed at as luxuries. More minute or large moles emerge
in the skin, especially if the individual is of a fair type. If a
strenuous effort is not made to give the adrenals an opportunity to
recuperate, or if adjustment on the part of the other glands does not
occur, this stage of intermittent and remittent adrenal inadequacy
gives way in turn to the state of permanent adrenal insufficiency.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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