Glands and Their Function 



261 



to his statement that "castration does 

 not seem to have much influence on 

 the thyroid gfland." Koch has shown 

 that it becomes very small in castrated 

 members of the skoptch sect in Russia 

 and Roumania. 



The author gives a very frood ac- 

 count of the interesting- rejuvenation 

 experiments by implantation of germ 

 glands, vasectomy, and use of X-rays, 

 and gives a fairly full discussion of 

 the work of VaronofT, Steinmach, and 

 others. He might well have mentioned 

 the interesting work of Dr. Stanley of 

 the California State Prison at San 

 Quentin. 



Dr. Harrow also presents an inter- 

 esting and well balanced account of 

 the controversy betwen Cannon and 

 Stewart upon the response of the 

 adrenal glands to emotional excite- 

 ment. He makes a well justified at- 

 tack upon the extremists who so 

 strongly urge the claims of organ- 

 otherapy. 



In this righteous war against sensa- 

 tionalism and quackery in which all 

 lovers of sanity and truth bid him 

 "God speed" he may now and then un- 

 justly chastise thoroughly "law abid- 

 ing" scientists as when under the 

 heading A Bit of Fancy Dr. Harrow 

 quotes some highly spiced newspaper 

 accounts of the New York meetings of 

 the International Congress of Eugenics, 

 as they were reported at the time. 

 The reports were quite wierd enough 

 as all will agree ; but a careful reading 

 of the two volumes of published pro- 

 ceedings of the meetings fails to re- 

 veal the erratic statements attributed 

 to the worthy scientists. Dr. Harrow 

 in his eagerness to defend truth and 

 sanity should not allow himself to be 

 drawn into a sham battle with men of 

 straw created by even "one of New 

 York's very res])ectable newspapers." 

 It is rather disconcerting to have a 

 scientist side with the public press in 

 its ribald laughter at the fancied 

 vagaries of scientists. Heaven knows 

 scientists have enousfh real vagaries 



to answer for. All this grows out of 

 the author's healthy and very praise- 

 worthy attitude of critical skepticism 

 and he deserves the highest ])raise for 

 sparing us the mass of half-baked 

 wild hypotheses that some recent 

 writers of books and quasi-popular 

 articles have foisted upon a gullible 

 public. So we say "all strength to his 

 arm even though he may now and 

 then hit an innocent and highly re- 

 spectable scientist." 



The author has given in his preface 

 a warning of his critical attitude in the 

 following readable passage : 



Monkey glands ; clever men and stupid 

 ones ; glands as the cause of crime ; the 

 origin of races; the mentally unbalanced; 

 many acute diseases ; the bearded lady, 

 the fat boy and the midget; all these and 

 many more have been dealt with under the 

 subject of glands of internal secretion. As 

 in any subject that fires the popular imagi- 

 nation, fact and fancy have been mixed — 

 several drops of fact have been diluted 

 with many drops of fancy. The achieve- 

 ments, judged by rigid scientific standards, 

 are no more than modest but the possibili- 

 ties are limitless. It is because of these 

 vast possibilities that an imagination, not 

 sufficiently tempered by self-criticism, is 

 apt to enlarge a molehill into a mountain. 



This is a fine attitude — the only 

 point of view from which one can 

 write a really worthwhile book on any 

 phase of science. The need for such 

 scientific caution is especially great in 

 this field of work where the tempta- 

 tions are so enticing, and Dr. Harrow 

 has given us an admirable book 

 worthv of the highest commendation. 

 It is a compact, up-to-date, and truly 

 scientific exposition of this subject. 

 For the most part it is a highly enter- 

 taining book. In places the beginner 

 might get rather deep into technicali- 

 ties, but the author has done all that 

 one could expect him to do toward 

 making this complicated subject under- 

 standable. He has carefully qualified 

 his statements by quoting conflicting 

 views of different authorities. While 

 this may bewilder readers who 

 demand dogmatic and sensational as- 



