Glands and Personality 



347 



tendency Berman shows to make far- 

 reaching generalizations upon an in- 

 secure foundation of scanty, conflicting 

 evidence. 



Berman, in his treatment of the 

 pineal gland, is even less justified from 

 the evidence in hand, saying, "The 

 pineal, the ghost of a once important 

 third eye at the back of our heads, 

 still harks back in its function to a 

 regulation of our susceptibility to light 

 and its effect upon sex and brain. So 

 it becomes one of the significant regu- 

 lators of development, w^ith an indirect 

 hastening or retardation of puberty 

 and maturity according as it works in 

 excess or too indolently." This seems 

 to be a very rash statement indeed in 

 the light of our present scanty knowl- 

 edge of the function of this gland. 



Types of Personality 



Berman assigns the majority of hu- 

 man personalities to one of three prin- 

 cipal types. 



A. Thyroid centered type — Bright 

 eyes, good, clean teeth, symmetrical 

 features, moist, flushed skin, tempera- 

 mental attitude toward life, tendency 

 to heart, intestinal, and nervous d:s 

 eases. 



B. Pituitary centered type — Abnor- 

 mally large or small size, musical, acute 

 sense of rhythm, asymmetrical fea- 

 tures, tendency to cyclic or periodic 

 diseases. 



C. Adrenal centered type — Hairy, 

 dark, masculinity marked, tendency to 

 diphtheria and hernia. 



"These are some of the master 

 types. They have their variants de- 

 pending upon the influences of the 

 other glands, especially the interstitial 

 glands". 



"We know also that the thyroid 

 dominant tends to be irritable and ex- 

 citable, the pituitary deficient to be 

 placid and gentle, the adrenal dominant 

 to be assertive and pugnacious, the 

 thymus-centered to be childish and 

 easy-go-lucky and the gonad deficient 

 to be secretive and shy. This brings us 

 to the relation of the internal secretions 



to the type of personality as a whole". 

 This is a typical passage showing how 

 he attempts to explain very complicated 

 conditions in a word. Such sweeping 

 statements seem quite unwarranted in 

 the light of our present knowledge, 

 although we can appreciate the grain 

 of truth in each assertion. 



The chapter on the sex-glands is 

 presented in striking fashion and con- 

 tains a large amount of information 

 in small compass. 



It is hard to believe with our author 

 when he says, regarding the adrenal 

 gland, "all evidence points to its 

 medulla as the secretor of the substance 

 which makes for the phenomena of 

 fear, and to its cortex as dominant in 

 the reactions of anger." This seems 

 to be carrying things a bit too far. 



Examples from History 



It is in the characterizations of per- 

 sonages of history that Berman makes 

 some of his most striking statements 

 and departs most widely from serious 

 science to wander in the realms of 

 phantasy. Napoleon was "a pituitary 

 centered, ante-pituitary superior, post- 

 pituitary inferior, with an instability 

 of both that would lead to his final 

 degeneration. Besides his insatiable 

 energy indicated an excellent thyroid, 

 his pugnacity, animality and genius for 

 practical affairs a superb adrenal." 



Nietsche's character is explained as 

 "pituitary centered, with post-pituitary 

 domination, a superior thyroid and in- 

 ferior adrenals". Darwin "had poor 

 adrenals, superior pituitary ('the nidus 

 of genuis') and an overacting thyroid." 

 Caesar showed "a most delicate balance 

 between his ante-pituitary, post-pitui- 

 tary, adrenals and thyroid". "Thaf 

 his thyroid functioned well can be de- 

 duced from a career which involved 

 more than three hundred personal tri- 

 umphs." "The masculine love of glory 

 and ambition, expression of a well 

 working ante-pituitary, was combined 

 with the effeminate echoes of an equally 

 well evolved post-pituitary." "He was 

 a rather muddled careerist because he 



