HOW THE GLANDS WERE DISCOVERED 29 



Little more than a hundred years ago, it was observed that 

 certain organs, like the thyroid body in the neck, and the adrenal 

 capsules in the abdomen, hitherto neglected because their func- 

 tion was hopelessly obscure, had a glandular structure. As in so 

 much scientific advance, the discovery or improvement of a new 

 instrument or method, a fresh tool of research, was responsible, 

 The perfection of the microscope was the reason this time. 



If one wishes to trace the idea of internal secretion by cells to 

 an individual, it is convenient, if not pedantic, to give the credit 

 to Theophile de Bordeu, a famous physician of Paris in the 

 eighteenth century. Bordeu came to Paris as a brilliant pro- 

 vincial in his early twenties and by the charm of his manner 

 and daring therapy fought his way to the most exclusive aristo- 

 cratic practice of the court. Naturally a courtier, taking to the 

 intrigues of the royal court like a duck to water, making enemies 

 on every hand as well as friends, and with a fastidious and 

 impatient clientele, he yet found time to dabble in the wonders 

 of the newly perfected microscope and to speculate upon the 

 meaning of the novelties revealed by it in the tissues. He coined 

 the thought of a gland secretion into the blood. 



It was in the year 1749 that he came to Paris from the 

 Pyrenees, a young medical graduate, destined to become the most 

 fashionable practitioner of his time. At the age of twenty-three 

 he was holding the professorship of anatomy at his alma mater, 

 Montpelier, where his father was a successful physician. At 

 twenty-five he was elected corresponding member of the Royal 

 Academy of Sciences. A handsome presence and a Tartarin de 

 Tarascon disposition assured his success from the start. The 

 medical world was then composed of the emulsion of charlatanry 

 and science Moliere ridiculed. Success stimulated envy and 

 jealousy. One of the richest of the older medical men set himself 

 the job of procuring his scalp. On a trumped-up charge of steal- 

 ing jewels from a dead patient — a favorite, accusation against 

 the doctors of the eighteenth century — he had Bordeu's license 

 taken away from him. The good graces of certain women to 

 whom Bordeu had always appealed, and who indeed supplied 

 the funds to get him started in Paris, rammed through two acts 

 of Parliament to reinstate him. Nothing daunted, he returned 

 to his quest for a court clientele, and was rewarded finally by 

 having the moribund Louis XV as a patient. 



This was the man with whom the modern history of the in- 

 ternal secretions begins. Not content with adventures among the 



