INTRODUCTORY II 



lacking their proper nourishment, fail to develop 

 normally and we see especially thyroid and 

 pituitary deficiency. This, again, results in im- 

 perfect growth, mental and bodily, and to faulty 

 metabolism. In adolescence, gonad deficiency 

 is perhaps the chief trouble. 



In early adult age, the joy and urge of life, as 

 a rule, for a time will overcome all these difficulties 

 and defects, and the cure may be permanent ; 

 but more often strains and settlements will 

 show the faulty foundations. In later age 

 we see, again too often, the old endocrine 

 deficiency reasserting itself, the health and the 

 mind failing for lack of their natural food and 

 stimuli. 



There is another condition, the gouty, which is 

 often due, in the first place, to excess rather than 

 to deficiency : food and alcohol are taken in 

 excess of the body's needs, and the tissues become 

 charged with effete, unconsumed material, but 

 this almost comes under the deficiency clause, 

 for it is the excretory organs that fail to cope 

 with the unnatural demands. 



From without daily, hourly, we lie open to 

 attack from germs of disease, from tuberculosis, 

 the infectious fevers, pneumococci, streptococci, 

 and others that as yet are beyond our ken. 



