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Afterwards, food, the routine of his existence, the accidents of experience, education, disease and misfortune, in short, environment, modify him because they modify his ductless glands and his vegetative apparatus, as well as his brain, depressing some parts, and stimulating others, and so rearranging the system.
This fact, together with a number of others, make clear that while the gonads may be the jeune premier of the drama, the vitality of the plot depends upon the other endocrines. Since old age is an exhaustion, permanent and irreparable of all the members of the ductless gland directorate, the reason becomes clear for the temporary quality of the rejuvenation effected by the procedures of Steinach.
It is only within a few years that biologists have had any idea of the use of these ductless glands or of their importance in the functions of life. Very often these ductless glands are diseased, and always they are more or less imperfect; but in whatever condition they are, the machine responds to their flow. The stored-up impressions are more or less awakened under stimulation.
It is important to get clearly in mind these subtle inter-reactions of the different ductless glands. They may be antagonistic in their end effects because of the opposed functions of the nerves or organs stimulated. There are inhibitions and restraints produced when a gland will send out its secretions to stop another gland secreting.
This behavior is caused by the capture, storage and release of energy through the ductless glands. A defective mechanism either inherited or acquired through imperfectly balanced glands will inevitably produce an imperfect mind and defective conduct. This it will be bound to do because the body is the mind. As a matter of fact, no man is branded physically with the "mark of Cain."
The most important of the ductless glands are the thyroid gland, located in the neck; the suprarenal bodies, situated one just over each kidney; and the thymus gland, a temporary gland in the upper part of the chest. They perform in this way a function like that of the ductless glands. The work of glands in preparing substances that enter the blood is known as internal secretion.
The liver itself, indeed, is not a ductless organ, but the quantity of its biliary output seems utterly disproportionate to its enormous size, particularly when it is considered that in the case of the human species the liver contains normally about one-fifth of all the blood in the entire body. Bernard discovered that the blood undergoes a change of composition in passing through the liver.
Most scientists of the past century asserted that it was a vestigial relic of prehistoric usefulness. To-day we know better. "One by one the functions of the internal secretions are being discovered. Our variously acquired bits of information concerning the ductless glands lie before us like the fragments of a modern picture puzzle.
We are probably not wrong in attributing the failure to develop and the persistently infantile appearance to a prejudicial effect upon the various ductless glands in the body. The condition is associated with an excessive retention of fluid in the body, secondary in all probability to alterations in the concentration and distribution of the saline constituents of the body.
This defect may quite possibly be in one of the ductless glands or in some of the internal secretions, rather than in the nervous system. Obviously, after what has been said of the world-wide causation of headache, to attempt to discuss its treatment would be as absurd as to undertake to advise what should be done for the relief of hunger, for "that tired feeling," or for a pain in the knee.
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