The Glands Regulating Personality

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

HOW THE GLANDS OF INTERNAL SECRETION WERE DISCOVERED

Just what are the glands of internal secretion? And how have we become possessed of whatever information about them we have? A brief review of how the idea of a gland of internal secretion came into the human mind and of the contributions that have converged into a single body of knowledge is worth while.

A gland is a collection of cells (those viscous globules which are the units of all tissues and organs). It manufactures substances intended for a particular effect upon the body economy. The effect may be either local or upon the body as a whole.

Originally, a gland meant something in the body which was seen to make something else, generally a juice or a liquid mixture of some sort. A classical example is the salivary glands elaborating saliva. The microscope has shown us that every gland is a chemical factory in which the cells are the workers. The product of the gland work is its secretion. Thus the sweat glands of the skin secrete the perspiration as their secretion, the lachrymal glands of the eyes the tears as theirs. The collectivism of management and control is the only essential difference between them and the modern soap factory or T.N.T. plant.

Man as a carnivor, and as a consequent anatomist, has been acquainted with these more superficially placed glands for some thousands of years. During all this time and during the epoch of the achievements of gross anatomy, it was believed that the secretions of all glands were poured out upon some surface of the body. Either an exterior surface like the skin, or some interior surface, the various mucous membranes. This was supported by the discovery of canal-like passage ways leading from the gland to the particular surface where its secretion was to act. These corridors, the secretory or excretory ducts, are present, for example, in the liver, conducting the bile to the small intestine. Devices of transportation fit happily into a comparison of a gland to a chemical factory, corresponding thus closely to the tramways and railroads of our industrial centers.

Little more than a hundred years ago, it was observed that certain organs, like the thyroid body in the neck, and the adrenal capsules in the abdomen, hitherto neglected because their function was hopelessly obscure, had a glandular structure. As in so much scientific advance, the discovery or improvement of a new instrument or method, a fresh tool of research, was responsible. The perfection of the microscope was the reason this time.

If one wishes to trace the idea of internal secretion by cells to an individual, it is convenient, if not pedantic, to give the credit to Theophile de Bordeu, a famous physician of Paris in the eighteenth century. Bordeu came to Paris as a brilliant provincial in his early twenties and by the charm of his manner and daring therapy fought his way to the most exclusive aristocratic practice of the court. Naturally a courtier, taking to the intrigues of the royal court like a duck to water, making enemies on every hand as well as friends, and with a fastidious and impatient clientele, he yet found time to dabble in the wonders of the newly perfected microscope and to speculate upon the meaning of the novelties revealed by it in the tissues....