66 THE GLANDS REGULATING PERSONALITY 



soft supporting and connecting tissues like tendons and ligaments 



^ comes into play. If the overaction or excess of secretion begins in 



childhood or adolescence, that is, before puberty, there results a 



great elongation of the bones, so that a giant is the consequence. 



Now giants have always appealed to the imagination of the little 

 man, and have had all kinds of wonderful abilities ascribed to 

 them by him. The giants and ogres of folk-lore and fairy tales 

 are favored with the most extraordinary mental advantages. 

 Direct and analytic acquaintance with the giants of our own 

 day, as well as a probing of their conduct in the past, has shown 

 that normal giants — persons of exceptional size free from physical 

 or mental deformities — are rare. There are people with hyper- 

 pituitarism who exhibit the highest mental powers. In them is an 

 increased activity of the posterior lobe in association with en- 

 largement and hyperfunction of the anterior, overgrowth is not so 

 marked, and the individual is lean and mentally acute. But the 

 ordinary giant is one in whom there is degeneration of the pitui- 

 tary after too much action of the anterior and too little of the 

 posterior glands. A tumor or disease process in the gland is most 

 often responsible. 



If the overaction of the anterior happens after puberty, when 

 the long bones have set, and can not grow longer, a peculiar 

 diffuse enlargement of the individual occurs, especially of his 

 hands and feet and head. The nose, ears, lips and eyes get 

 larger and coarser. As these people are rather big and tall to 

 begin with, the effect produced is that of a heavy-jawed, burly, 

 bulking person, with bushy overhanging eyebrows, and an aggres- 

 sive manner. For there is, too, something distinctive about their 

 mentality which has been as often portrayed as those of the path- 

 ologic giant. Rabelais' most famous character, Gargantua, be- 

 longs to the group. We recruit more drum-majors than prime 

 ministers from among these people. They often suffer much from 

 torturing boring headaches, and a consequent despondency and 

 feeling of hopelessness which colors gray the entire spiritual 

 spectrum. Up to a certain point these sufferers have a remark- 

 able alertness and capacity. When conscious of the malady, they 

 often meet it with a doggedly courageous optimism, which is an- 

 other characteristic, although women occasionally commit suicide. 



In both the semi-hibernators who remind one of cattle, and in 

 the giant or acromegalic types who remind one of the anthropoid 

 », ape, there develops a distinct diminution of sexual life. An ab- 

 normal process in the anterior gland, whether of oversecretion 



