INTELLIGENCE, POWER, 



ground of constant energy at a high level for mastering 

 the conditions of survival under contrasting seasons of 

 plenty and of dearth and seasons of warmth and of cold 

 and storm. These extreme variables in climate present con- 

 ditions for the highest survival value of the thinking part 

 of the brain as well as of the energy part of the brain and 

 also for a thyroid gland sufficiently large to maintain a high 

 level of constant oxidation. Has evolution created as large 

 a thinking brain, as large a thyroid gland, celiac ganglia 

 and plexuses, and as large a blood volume as the limits of 

 safety will permit ? In other words, can civilization advance 

 indefinitely ? 



The answer is now appearing in the diseases peculiar to 

 civilized man. The brain-thyroid axis is destroying many 

 of our most brilliant men and women in a pathologic 

 physiology of oxidation called "exophthalmic goiter," in 

 which death is due to what is called "heatstroke" and also 

 in neurocirculatory asthenia, or soldier's heart. As for the 

 great driving brain, its limit is indicated by the existence 

 of 606,394 hospital beds for mental and nervous diseases 

 in the United States. The axis partner of the brain that 

 maintains the negative potential, the faithful heart, is 

 reaching its ceiling of possibilities, as shown by the fact 

 that in 1938 50 cents out of every dollar paid in death 

 claims by the insurance companies of the United States 

 and Canada was for deaths from diseases due to over- 

 work of the heart and the vascular system, such as hyper- 

 tension, coronary disease, and the cardiorenal syndrome. 

 The ceiling limiting the further advance of civilized man's 

 possibilities is seen also in the increasing incidence of 

 peptic ulcer, indigestion, Raynaud's disease, neurasthenia, 

 and psychoses. 



We can see now why these diseases are peculiar to 

 civilized man and why neither the native of the tropics nor 

 the native of the arctic can acquire our civilization or, as a 

 corollary, the diseases peculiar to civilized man. Modern 



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