74 THE GLANDS REGULATING PERSONALITY 



circulation from the blood lakes of the liver and spleen. There 



a redistribution of the whole blood mass, a good deal of it 



being withdrawn from the internal viscera, and hurried to the 



^-skeleton muscles and the brain. The heart beats more strongly, 

 the eye sees more clearly, the ear hears more distinctly, and the 



breathing is more rapid. The temperature rises, the hair of the 



-head and the body becomes erect, the skin gets moist and greasy. 

 It will help a fatigued muscle to regain its normal tone. In 

 short, it has a reinforcing action upon the nutritive properties 

 of the blood, the tone of the muscles, and the activity of the brain 

 and the vegetative nerves. 



Chemists set themselves the task of discovering just what was 

 the substance possessed of such extraordinary and hitherto un- 

 imagined properties. The pure adrenalin was isolated, capable 

 of evoking all the reactions of the impure adrenal extract mix- 

 tures. The final triumph was the preparation of it artificially 

 in the laboratory, its synthesis. When a substance can be synthe- 

 sized in the chemist's laboratory, it means that its composition 

 has become thoroughly understood. Here at last was an example 

 of those mysterious internal secretions, the existence of which had 

 indeed been postulated and proven, but which had never actually 

 been inspected by the eye of mortal man. To have it in a test- 

 tube, indeed to possess it in large quantities in bottles, to be able 

 to manipulate and examine it without fear of the co-action of 

 admixed impurities, to see it with the eye, and to taste it with 

 the tongue, was truly a marvel. The miracle aroused at once 

 scores of researches. 



The Gland of Combat and Fight 



Considering its effects, one is reminded at once of the similarity 

 to the expression of a primitive emotion like anger or fear. So, 

 by turning a relation upside down, it was argued that if artificial 

 adrenalin could produce all these effects of an emotion like fear, 

 the emotion itself should produce an increase of the natural adre- 

 nalin in the blood. This was found to be the case. Cannon of 

 Harvard has built up an entire theory of the adrenal as the 

 gland of emergencies upon the basis of these effects. In the 

 facing of crises the adrenal functions as the gland of combat. 

 And indeed, as I have mentioned, the more combative and pug- 

 nacious an animal, the more adrenal it has, while the timid and 

 meek and weak have less. 



