32 THE GLANDS REGULATING PERSONALITY 



attracted attention. The proverbs and stories of all nations are 

 full of references to them. But up to the nineteenth century no 

 controlled experimental work was ever carried out regarding 

 i. It was in 1849, that A. A. Berthold of Gottingen, a quiet, 

 re lecturer, carried out the pioneer experiment of removing 

 the testes of four roosters and transplanting them under the 

 ^kin. It was Berthold's idea to test whether a gland with a 

 definite external secretion, and a duct through which that secre- 

 tion was expelled, but which yet had powers over the body as a 

 whole that were to be attributed only to an internal secretion, 

 could not be shown, by a clean-cut experiment, to possess such 

 an internal secretion. He succeeded perfectly. For he found 

 that, though, in thus separating the gland from its duct and so 

 cutting off its external secretion, the action of the cells manufac- 

 turing that secretion was destroyed, the general effects upon the 

 body were not those of castration. The animals retained their 

 male characteristics as regards voice, reproductive instinct, fight- 

 ing spirit and growth of comb and wattles. Whereas if the 

 glands were entirely removed, these male traits, peculiar to the 

 rooster, were completely lost. The inference was the existence 

 of an internal secretion. 



To Berthold belongs the honor of being the first experimental 

 demonstrator who proved the reality of a gland with a true in- 

 ternal secretion and the power it exercised through the blood upon 

 the entire organism. Besides, he showed that a typical gland of 

 external secretion could also have an internal secretion, a possi- 

 bility never before considered. That two kinds of cells could 

 live within the same gland: one set usually recognized as pro- 

 ducing the external secretion, the other evolving the internal 

 secretion, was an astounding original conception. 



Enter Claude Bernard 



Science is supposed to be immune to the personal prejudices 

 and emotional habits of the vulgar. It is the tradition that a 

 new contribution to knowledge emerging from no matter how 

 obscure the source, should be hailed as a gift from the gods. 

 But the sad truth of the matter is that a new finding in science 

 requires as much backing as a new project in high finance or 

 social climbing. Berthold, like Mendel, the founder of genetics, 

 was a great pioneer. But there was no personage, no person of 

 consequence, with no patronage by anyone of consequence, nQ 



