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Then, with adolescence, he changed. Adolescence is one of the red-letter epochs for the pituitary, when its growth and enlargement precedes and stimulates the ripening of the sex cells in the reproductive organs. Until adolescence ended and physical development ceased, his intellectual interests were nil, and he was particularly backward in mathematics.
As a consequence, to hold the sex stimulating glands in check, there had to appear others, restraining them and so preventing sex precocity. These are the thymus and pineal. So closely are they all related that insufficient action of the thyroid, pituitary or adrenals may cause atrophy of the ovaries and uterus, with abolition of genital function.
For four years he studied the morbid phenomena in the tissues of these sufferers at last consigned to their end. First one, and then another, and then a third and a fourth exhibited a striking hypertrophy of the pituitary body and a consequent widening of the portion of the base of the skull which cradles the gland. He proceeded to say so in the graduating thesis of his pupil, Souza Leite.
All in all, there can be no doubt that Oscar Wilde was a case of status lymphaticus, the technical name for the thymus-centered personality. As happens in a number of thymocentrics, his pituitary must have attempted to compensate for the endocrine deficiencies always present in them. The exceptional size of his head was a pituitary trait.
His sharply outlined features and a powerful lower jaw, combined with oddly small plump hands, long straight black hair, and dark complexion, all point to the pituitary, with a secondary adrenal effect. His pulse was slow, according to Corvisart, his personal physician, rarely above 50 to the minute. His sexual life, his libido, was abnormal.
A friendship struck up with a naturalist, Henslow, settled his career for him. Henslow heard of a trip of general exploration the ship Beagle was to take and recommended Darwin as naturalist. The captain at first would not hear of the proposal because of Darwin's nose, a typical pituitary proboscis. But his prejudices were overcome, and Darwin sailed.
Most characters, somatic or psychic, are the products not of the action of one internal secretion alone, but of the interlinked activities of all of them. The amount of fat deposited under the skin, for instance, is influenced by the pituitary, the thyroid, the pancreas, the liver, the adrenals and the sex glands.
Cardiac Tonics: Digiralis, strophanthus, caffein, strychnin. 2. Cardiac Stimulants: Camphor, alcohol, ammonia. 3. Vasodilators: Nitrites, iodids, thyroid extract. 4. Cardiac Nutritives: Iron, calcium. 5. Cardiac Emergency Drugs: Ergot, suprarenal active principle, pituitary active principle, atropin, morphin, and also some of the drugs already mentioned.
"The pituitary is practically the same, from myxine to man." A trusted veteran, therefore, among the internal secretory organs, its importance can be surmised. To understand the story of the pituitary, variously acquired bits of information concerning it have been assembled and fitted together like the fragments of a picture puzzle, as Cushing has so well put it.
"It would have been interesting," Thorndyke remarked as we passed up Aldgate High Street, "to have put one's finger into His Majesty's pituitary fossa after his decease, of course. By the way, here is Harrow Alley; you remember Defoe's description of the dead-cart waiting out here, and the ghastly procession coming down the alley."
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