THE GLANDS: THYROID AND PITUITARY 61 



plainer English, its power to prevent poisoning, or to increase 

 I- resistance against poisons, including the bacteria and other liv- 

 ing agents which cause the infectious diseases. Each molecule of 

 I food, ingested for assimilation into our substance, accumulates a 

 i history of wanderings and pilgrimages, attachments and trans- 

 ; formations beside which the gross trampings of a Marco Polo 

 i become the rambling steps of a seven-league booted giant. In 

 the course of its peregrinations, it becomes a potential poison, 

 potential because it is never allowed to grow in concentration to 

 the danger point. The thyroid plays its role of protector like all 

 I the internal secretory machines. In an animal deprived of a 

 i thyroid the feeding of meat shortens life — a single sample of how 

 it works to guard against intoxication from within. The feeding 

 of thyroid will also raise the ability of the cells to stand poisons 

 introduced from without — intoxications of all sorts. Alcohol and 

 morphine will affect in much smaller doses the subthyroid person 

 than the normal or the hyperthyroid. As regards the infections, 

 which directly or indirectly kill most of us, the injection of 

 thyroid will increase the content in the blood of the protective 

 antibodies which preserve us, temporarily at any rate, against 

 malignant invaders. The opsonins, for example, those substances 

 which butter the bacteria so that the appetite of the white cells 

 for them is properly roused, are mobilized by thyroid feeding or 

 injection. Other substances in the blood which destroy and dis- 

 solve bacteria are also increased. The thyroid probably per- 

 forms these functions by sending its secretion to the cells directly 

 responsible for the immunity reactions, and stimulating them to 

 activity. 



A sketch of the thyroid like the foregoing shows it as the won- 

 drous controller of vitality and growth, and indefatigable pro- 

 tector against intoxicants and injuries. When it is sufficiently 

 active, life is worth while; when it is defective, life is a difficult 

 threatening blackness. That would make it out as the gland of 

 glands. It is tremendously important, without a doubt, in normal 

 everyday life. But no more so than the other members of the 

 cast. The position of star it may claim, but in vain. The other 

 glands of internal secretion to be sketched will each, when the 

 marvels of its business in the cell-corporation are considered, 

 present itself as candidate for the honors of the president. Jus- 

 tice should give fair credit to all the organs which fabricate the 

 reagents of individuality, and the regulators of personality. 



