WHAT MEDICINE HAS DONE AND IS DOING FOR THE RACE 45 1 



protective segregation of the mental defectives and limita- 

 tion of their propagation. 



Reform in the Treatment of the Insane. The efforts of 

 Pinel (1745- 1 826) in France from 1792, John Connolly (1840), 

 the Tukes and others in Britain led to the abandonment of 

 barbarous methods, a rehcof the time of demoniac possession, 

 and changed the character of asylums from that of prisons to 

 that of mental hospitals. By the modern study of the factors 

 responsible for mental disorder and the early treatment of 

 mental instabihty great benefit has been effected in both 

 preventive and curative directions. This movement of 

 mental hygiene has been an actively efficient method of 

 correcting faulty habits of life, removing injurious environ- 

 mental influences, and of correcting abnormahties of conduct, 

 and thus preventing deliquency and mental disorder. By 

 the arrangements made for the care and segregation of the 

 mentally defective, their well-being has been promoted and 

 the liability of their multiplying has been minimized. 



ENDOCRINE DISEASES 



Certain glands in the body pour their secretions into the 

 circulating blood and are spoken of as the ductless or 

 endocrine glands or glands of internal secretion (see Chap. x). 

 The substances they supply are necessary for the normal 

 functioning of the body and are called hormones and spoken 

 of as chemical messengers. Absence, deficiency, excess, or 

 alteration of these hormones upsets the so-called endocrine 

 balance and produces various disorders of health or dis- 

 eases. The secretion of the thyroid gland contains the 

 active principle, thyroxin, which can now be artificially 

 made or synthetized in the chemical laboratory; it is a 

 stimulant and increases the changes, or metabolism, of the 

 body so that they take place more rapidly. If, as the result 

 of disease or removal of the thyroid gland, the secretion of 

 thyroxin is absent, the individual becomes apathetic, slow 

 in body and mind, puffy and somew^iat fat; when this 

 occurs in an adult it is known as myxedema, when in a baby 

 as cretinism and then, although the years pass, the individual 

 remains in an infantile state. These patients can be restored 

 to practically a normal condition by the administration of 



