170 THE INTERNAL SECRETIONS 1920 



and credited if we remember the common blastodermic 

 origin of the adrenals and the sympathetic nervous sys- 

 tem, and how both seem to work together to keep the 

 machinery going, while we go on with our work and 

 play without troubling ourselves as to details, unless 

 one finds difficulty with its job and the functions which 

 usually are going on so quietly, rise to consciousness, 

 when a little regulation of the right kind may make 

 all right again. 



We have always to keep in mind that life is consist- 

 ent only with a certain chemical equilibrium and the 

 retrograde changes that appear when the circulation is 

 depressed, to think of innumerable instances in which 

 this therapy is applicable. 



Until we are able to diagnose slight endocrine dys- 

 function more accurately and to determine the result- 

 ing pathology, we shall not be able to treat these cases 

 other than empirically, but a beginning is already being 

 made to place this matter on an unassailable, scientific 

 basis. 



The work of Georgine Luden is interesting; her ex- 

 perimental work tending to show the metabolic upset 

 attendant on the climacteric glandular changes is a 

 factor that allows of the excessive cell proliferation in 

 malignancy. She argues that there is an increase of 

 cholesterin in the blood and that this favors excessive 

 cell proliferation and malignancy. The cholesterin 

 metabolism and its elimination are regulated by the 

 adrenals, liver, spleen, ovary and corpus luteum in 

 order of importance. Incidentally, her argument goes 

 to show that the accumulation of fat at that time is a 

 factor of safety under the conditions, serving as a 

 storehouse for the surplus cholesterin, and that it is 

 not the adiposity that should be treated, but rather the 

 glands of internal secretion, whose faulty working al- 

 lows the accumulation of abnormal amounts of choles- 

 terin in the blood and tissues. 



