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
These traits of physiognomy and physique indicate functional
hermaphroditism in the underlying feminoid constitution. The feminoid
constitution appears again in the supposedly masculine. The feminoid
constitution should not be confused with the infantiloid constitution.
The former, the gonado-centric personality, is a digression of growth,
a deviated evolution of the individual because of the conflicting
forces, some masculine and some feminine, in his make-up. The
infantiloid constitution is one of arrested development, and may
center around the arrested function in childhood or adolescence of
any one or a number of endocrine glands. Yet the two may resemble one
another pretty closely, at times. A cretin imitates the extreme grade
of infantiloid constitution. The infantiloid is a sort of enlarged and
lengthened child. The feminoid is ostensibly a man, with a good deal
of woman in him. The infantiloid is a quite general type, but of
course when typical is a freak, recognized and treated as such. How
far the eunuchoid may deviate from the normal is suggested by the
following description of one.
"Face rounded, moon-like, chubby, devoid of hair. Eyes puffed. Lips
protruding and fleshy. Cheeks round and thick. Nose little developed.
Skin thick and of clear color. Disproportion between the size of head
and body. Hair of scalp fine. Brows and lashes scarce, trunk elongated
and cylindrical. Limbs thick and plump, tapering from the root to the
extremities. Good fat layers over the entire body. Reproductive organs
those of a little boy. Infantile mental state: light-heartedness,
naïvete, timidity, easily evoked tears and laughter, promptly aroused
but fugitive wrath: excessive tenderness, but unreasonable dislikes."
An almost wholly mental infantiloid state or one purely physical
may occur. Certain rather large Tom Thumbs belong to the group. In
everyday life we see doll creatures, overgrown children, on every
hand. Mental measurements of any large group of population reveal a
remarkable percentage of it as below the mental age of 12. Juvenile
traits and juvenile mind, separate or combined, should always suggest
the possibility of the infantiloid constitution of one type of
thymocentric also.
The eunuchoid or feminoid personality is also found often among
artists. One must carefully distinguish the two because the ensemble
of characteristics of the one may easily stimulate the other. Yet
fundamentally they are as far apart as the poles. The infantiloid
type never rises above the subnormal, which is its habitat, while the
feminoid type (or masculinoid, in woman) often produces an abnormal
personality which rises above the normal. The infantiloids become the
slaves and the weaklings of society, the Mark Tapleys, and the Tom
Pinches, while the eunuchoids have created splendid literature and
immortal music.
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