756 PEECY FEIDENBERG 



mental aberrations, possibly inherited neuroses, may be secre^togenic. This 

 might throw light on "maternal impressions." 



Internal secretions of the five important endocrin glands, pituitary, 

 suprarenals, gonadal, pineal, and thyroid, control racial characteristics of 

 the great divisions of man, Caucasian, Negro, Mongol, Amerind ( ?). 



Inheritance as a morphological process met with certain serious ob- 

 jections based entirely on quantitative considerations of size of ovum and 

 spermatozoon. . A secreto-genic and secreto- or glandulotropic influence 

 would be more acceptable and in greater logical accord with topographic 

 possibilities. Summation of endocrin sensitizing proteins again would 

 account for inheritance of certain acquired characteristics, i. e., those which 

 by their nature would affect the physiological, endocrin balance, while it 

 would explain the failure to transmit purely mechanical alterations such 

 as amputations either of extremities or of foreskins. 



The same summation via consanguinity of parents would produce 

 a bad inheritance, or what we might call an endocrin overdose, and thus 

 account for many familial degenerative processes and developmental de- 

 fects. The incidence of such ocular degenerations with a history of marked 

 dietary or vitamine insufficiency during the pregnancy of the mother is 

 at least significant. 



The familial or what is analogous, racial element, is seen in glaucoma, 

 in retinal, corneal, lenticular, and other degenerative states. Vitamin de- 

 ficiency or hormone lack due to syphilis or tuberculosis destroys vision 

 and pigment and gravely affects the endocrin glands which then show in 

 the offspring a similar disturbance of nutrition. 



Sex and Heredity. Sex and other processes of heredity are endocrin 

 reactions linked to the chromosomes (Goldschmidt). The fertilized egg 

 protoplasma furnishes the chemical material for growth and differenti- 

 ation, while the chromogen furnish determinants and factors for specific 

 direction of processes which make offspring resemble their progenitors. 



These factors are enzymes of specific characteristics in quality and 

 quantity or concentration. The velocity of the enzymes, which is propor- 

 tional to their concentration, stabilizes the rhythm of differentiation. The 

 principal reaction thus accelerated by enzymes of heredity to a definite 

 velocity is the formation of hormones directing growth, differentiation, 

 periodic development, with an action similar to that of the glands of in- 

 ternal secretion. 



Phylogenesis of Ophthalmo-Endocrine System 



Endocrin control has developed biogenetically in response to repeated 

 stimuli depending on sense impressions, largely visual, and auditoTy, pro- 

 ducing characteristic activation patterns (Crile) in man and animals. 

 The internal secretions called hormones precede all types of nervous sys- 



