THE ADRENAL GLAND 267 



whose function is unknown to us we must be attacked by a noble un- 

 rest and seek to discover it. It is this which provoked the Academy 

 to select as a subject 'The Function of the Surrenal Glands or Atra- 

 biliary Capsules' and to encourage scientists to work on a problem 

 which, in spite of the researches of so many investigators, was still 

 completely new and seemed to have been so far more the object of their 

 desperation rather than of their understanding." 



There is no need to quote all the devastating criticism heaped by 

 Montesquieu upon the unfortunates who had rashly accepted the offer 

 of the Academy to compete for this prize. Two quotations from his 

 criticism will suffice to illustrate what the hopeful contributors to the 

 literature of that day might anticipate from the critics of their papers. 



"We have found an author who admits the existence of two kinds 

 of bile; one, the rougher kind, which is manufactured in the liver; the 

 other, more subtle, which is manufactured in the kidneys with the help 

 of the ferment which flows from the capsules through passages of 

 whose existence we are not aware and of whose existence we are even 

 threatened of never being aware. But as the Academy wishes to be 

 enlightened and not discouraged we do not stop at this system, 



"Still another describes for us two little vessels which carry the 

 humours from the cavity of the gland into the vein which irrigates it. 

 This humour, which many experiments have led us to believe is alka- 

 line, is used according to this writer to give fluidity to the blood which 

 is coming out of the kidneys after having abandoned there the liquid 

 which composes urine. It must be said that this investigator has only 

 too good supporters for what he proposed : Sylvius, Manget and others 

 had expounded this theory before him. The Academy, which doesn't 

 like duplication and always desires new knowledge, which like an 

 avaricious person who, because of this cupidity wants always to acquire 

 new riches and seems to count as nothing what he already possesses, 

 has not awarded the palm to this system." 



Yet Montesquieu could rise above mere destructive criticism. He 

 recognized the difficulty of the question raised by the Academy and the 

 inadequacy of the then existing knowledge of these organs. "Chance 

 [he writes] will perhaps some day achieve what this work could not." 



And what has chance and scientific endeavor achieved in the past 

 230 years? Would Montesquieu now agree that the question posed by 

 the Academy has been answered or would we and our predecessors who 

 have worked on this problem again sit in trepidation as he delivered 

 judgment? While I would hesitate to give a categorical "Yes" to the 



