78 FIELDING H. GARRISON 



are those of von Eiselsberg on the thyroid gland (1901), Harvey Gushing 

 on the pituitary body (1912), and W. S. Halsted on the operation for 

 goiter (1919). In 1917, an Association for the Study of the Internal 

 Secretions was founded in the United States, its literary organ or bulletin 

 being Endocrinology (1917). In 1917, a special symposium on the rela- 

 tion of the glands of internal secretion to gynecology and obstetrics was 

 held, by leading authorities, at the annual meeting of the American 

 Gynecological Society. 



The very complexity of the great mass of existing knowledge of the in- 

 ternal secretions indicates that it is in a state of flux. No attempt at a 

 larger correlation or synthesis, which shall weld so many contradictory 

 facts and opinions into a harmonious whole, has been successful to date. 

 Only the surface of the subject has been scratched. Experimental evidence 

 exists, equally in support of the doctrine of the Viennese clinicians that 

 diathesis, or susceptibility to disease, is associated with the internal secre- 

 tions, or of the doctrine of Sajous that they play an important part in the 

 protective mechanism of the body. Again, it seems plain that no single 

 ductless gland can entirely replace another gland as to function, and that 

 seemingly identical effects or overlapping of functions of different glands 

 are, like the auditory effects of enharmonics in music, illusory. The effect 

 of different glands upon mobilization of glycogen, or of tumors of the 

 adrenal, pituitary, or pineal upon genital conformation are really com- 

 pensatory effects, over- or underactivity of the pancreas or the sexual 

 gonads to set off the opposite condition elsewhere. Finally, the embryology 

 and histology of the ductless glands reveal complexity rather than simplic- 

 ity of structure, so that the best guide in their investigation has been Sir 

 Michael Foster's dictum that no important organ in the body has a soli- 

 tary, exclusive physiological function. 



