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For example, alterations in the efficiency of the cerebral link may yield neurasthenia, mania, dementia; of the thyroid link, Graves' disease, myxedema; of the adrenal link, Addison's disease, cardiovascular disease. This introduction may serve to give the line of our argument.
The relation between the adrenal and the skin dates way back in the evolutionary scale, for adrenalin has been isolated directly from pigment deposits in the epidermis of frogs. Skin pigment bears a direct relation to the reaction of the organism to light, especially the ultraviolet rays, to the radiation of heat, and hence to the fundamental productions and consumptions of energy by the cells.
How the two parts came to be united is a long story, interesting but too long to be recounted here. In fishes they are apart and independent. Each adrenal is a cocked hat shaped affair, astride the kidneys, easily recognized because of its yellowish fatty color.
We shall have to consider this in greater detail when we analyze the internal secretion basis of masculinity and femininity. In general, the degree of general hairiness is an index to the amount of adrenal influence upon the organism. All the endocrines which affect the hair growth also act upon the sebaceous glands which oil the skin.
Like the pituitary, each adrenal gland is a double gland, that is, consists of two distinct portions, united together, one might say, by the accident of birth. It would be confusing, however, to speak of each as two glands, because there are, as a matter of fact, two separate adrenal glands, one in the right side of the abdomen, and the other in the left. Each gland is composite, or duplex.
On the other hand, the size and regularity of the lateral incisors seem proportional to the influence of the interstitial cells. When these are inferior in the make-up of an individual, the lateral incisors are nearly always distorted. The size of the canines appears to be a measure of adrenal activity.
One of the glands, the thyroid, for example, will show, by the traces it has left upon the earliest developing features, that it was in control at the very earliest dates of his history, while other signs will disclose the more recent influence of the adrenal or of the pituitary. The combination becomes classifiable as the thyroid-pituitary type, or as the thyroid-adrenal type.
One, the adrenal gland, has been the object of special study and has been shown, upon the arousal of these reserves of energy, to produce a secretion of the utmost importance in providing for sudden emergencies. This little gland is located above the kidney, and is aroused to intense activity at times, pouring out into the blood a fluid that goes all over the body.
If this conclusion be well founded, we should find corroborative evidence in histologic changes in that great storehouse of potential energy, the liver, as a result of the application of each of the adequate stimuli which produced brain-cell and adrenal changes. The Liver In prolonged insomnia the striking changes in the liver were repaired by one seance of sleep.
The hastening of sexual hair by tumors of the adrenal gland may also be put down to a release from restraint of the interstitial sex cells. There are certain spheres in the hair geography of the body, over which particular glands may be said to rule or to possess a mandate. The hair of the head seems to be primarily under the control of the thyroid.
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