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Like the thymus it is a ductless gland, abundantly supplied with blood-vessels, and possesses a vast number of small cavities, lined with cells and containing an insoluble jelly. So far as appears, both these glands are useless, or nearly so, to man; or if the thyroid performs any useful service it is a minor and obscure one.
However, in both of the latter, if there is a persistent thymus, the skin will retain the bland quality of adolescence. There is a curious variation among the different internal secretion types in the reaction of the skin to stroking.
The functional activity of no other gland of the body alone, and the secretion of no other gland alone, can cause a comparable rise in body temperature that is, neither increased functional activity nor any active principle derived from the kidney, the liver, the stomach, the pancreas, the hypophysis, the parathyroids, the spleen, the intestines, the thymus, the lymphatic glands, or the bones can, per se, cause a rise in the general body temperature comparable to the rise that may be caused by the activity of the brain or the muscles, or by the injection of adrenalin or thyroid extract.
White varieties of many species of blue-bells and gentians are found not rarely, white-flowering plants of heather, both of Erica Tetralix and Calluna vulgaris occur on European heaths; white flowers of Brunella vulgaris, Ononis repens, Thymus vulgaris and others may be seen in many localities in the habitats of the colored species.
Since it is especially a sex gland inhibitor, the thyroid and pituitary become freer to exert their influences than under the thymus régime. And so we find that it is after the second year that thyroid and pituitary tendencies manifest their effects.
In addition, it may be as well to remember that death sometimes occurs suddenly in exophthalmic goitre, hypertrophy of the thymus, and in Addison's disease. In some cases of sudden death nothing has been found post mortem, even when the autopsy has been made by skilled observers, and the brain and cord have been submitted to microscopical examination. Cadaveric appearance; ashy white colour.
When such abnormalities of adrenal, pituitary, thymus or pineal occur in girls, it is the masculine streak in the hastening of growth that is made manifest. All this emphasizes the relative bisexuality of every normal, no matter how pronounced, when superficially viewed, his or her form of predominating sex may be.
Back in 1858, the pioneer student of the thymus, Friedleben, declared that the size and condition of the thymus is an index to be the state of nutrition of the body. Underfeeding for four weeks will reduce it to one thirtieth the normal. It seems to act as a storage and reserve organ, affording some protection against the limitation of growth by lack of food material.
Of two hundred seeds one became a blue atavist, or rather vicinist, while all others remained true to the white type. The same was observed in the white creeping thyme, or Thymus Serpyllum album, and the white self-heal, Brunella vulgaris alba, gave even so much as 28% seedlings with purple corollas out of some 400 specimens, after being cultivated in close proximity to its parent-species.
The sex index will certainly come in time as a measurement of sexuality. But until then some more available classification of sex tendency is necessary. Including sex intergrades, one may divide sex types into six classes: male, male-female, male-female, female, female-male, and female-male. The sex intergrades, the four hyphenated classes, nearly all have some degree of persistent thymus.
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