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
Any break in the somatic or psychic equilibrium, a blow or an
infection, or a startling thing seen, or a worrisome thought felt,
will start a process going. This will only wind up when every gland
has been somehow touched, and a final equilibrium reestablished. The
thyroid, maybe, was first excited, and then in turn the adrenals, with
a boomerang reinforcing effect upon the thyroid, and at the same time
a stimulating effect upon the pituitary. Each gland is thus influenced
and influencing, agent and reagent in the complex adjustments of the
organism.
ENDOCRINE CO-OPERATIONS
The body-mind is a perfect corporation. Not quite perfect, for
continually there arise little insurgencies, inadequacies and
frictions to which in time it will succumb. Yet, in the efficiency of
its co-operations, and in the co-ordination of the needs and supplies
of producer, middle man, and consumer, there is no one of the great
organizations of the captains of industry which can for a moment
approach it.
Of this corporation the glands of internal secretion are the
directors. But the huge corporation, not to topple over with its own
unwieldy size, must be composed of smaller units, each within itself
a corporation, and governed by a directorate. There are, in the
corporation-organism, different departments and bureaus, subdivisions
of function, which constitute the smaller corporations within the
larger corporation. These subsidiary companies have their own glands
of internal secretion as their directors.
Thus, the growth of the brain is presided over by the adrenal cortex,
the thyroid, the thymus and the pituitary. They determine the size of
the brain, the number of its cells, the complexity of its convolutions
and the speed of its chemistry, which means the speed of thought and
memory and imagination. As its directorate, therefore, they may be
entitled. The disturbance of one of them means the disturbance of all
of them, and a consequent deleterious effect upon the brain. Now take
the burning up of sugar in the organism, the great material source
of energy, which is controlled by the pancreas, the adrenals and
the liver, the thyroid and the pituitary. Together they form the
directorate of sugar metabolism. But, as is evident from a glance at
the membership of the growth directorate, and comparing it with the
directorate of sugar metabolism, there are some members who are
present on both boards. An infection, an illness, an ailment, an
exaltation or intoxication of such members will produce reverberations
in both directorates. A disturbance of sugar metabolism might then
cause a disturbance of growth. The advantages and disadvantages
are before us of having, in the glands of internal secretion, an
interlocking directorate, rulers over all the varied and manifold
activities of the organism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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