THE ADRENAL GLANDS 77 



while everything non-essential or detrimental to the matter of 

 the moment is inhibited, arrested and suppressed — no more per- 

 fect sample of the design with which Life is drenched could be 

 imagined by the most closeted of passionate idealists. 



Failure of the Adrenals 



As the gland of acute stress and strain, the adrenals in modern 

 life are called upon to function more heavily and frequently than 

 in the past. As a matter of fact, the life of the beast of jungle 

 and field, as well as of savage and barbarian, is just as full of 

 emergencies and shocks as that of the average city man or 

 woman. In the case of the latter, however, inhibitions, education, 

 and the conditions of modern living, improper food, sedentary 

 indoor confinement, and universal rack and noise, have undoubt- 

 edly made greater and greater demands upon the adrenal glands. 

 Chemical quantitative studies have shown that by repeated 

 stimulation, the adrenal glands may be exhausted of their reserve 

 supply of secretion, which returns only insufficiently if not enough 

 time is given for recuperation. There results a condition of 

 temporary or chronic adrenal insufficiency, supposedly an insuf- 

 ficient functioning of the gland as a whole. In persons so afflicted 

 there appears a fatigability, a sensitiveness to cold, cold hands 

 and feet, which are sometimes mottled bluish-red, a loss of ap- 

 petite and zest in life, and a mental instability characterized by 

 an indecision, and a tendency to worry, a weepishness upon the 

 slightest provocation. 



A certain number of the temporary breakdowns or nervous 

 prostrations, which seem to be growing more common or fashion- 

 able, may be sometimes traced to such a deficiency of normal 

 response to the needs of everyday conflict by the adrenal gland. 

 In some, mental and physical elasticity are totally lost, and 

 even the slightest exertion in either field often causes so much 

 weariness and exhaustion as to be prohibited. Depression and 

 even melancholia are associated with the fear of not being able 

 to accomplish good work hitherto easy and enjoyed. Sometimes _ 

 they are obsessed with the thought that they have lost their nerve 

 completely, and so dread to commit themselves in even the most^ 

 trivial of situations. The vacillating frame of mind is so distress- 

 ing at times as to arouse thoughts of suicide. When thes^g. 

 symptoms concur in the type of personality whom I shall describe 



