CHAPTER IV 

 THE GLANDS AS AN INTERLOCKING DIRECTORATE 



Now in considering each gland of internal secretion as a sep- 

 arate entity, and labelling it with certain properties and actions, 

 we of course commit the usual sin of the intellect: the sin of 

 abstraction and isolation of its material. This crime of analysis 

 the intellect commits every day in the search for truth. Before 

 its dissection, it seems to have to dip the elusive article in a fixa- 

 tive, and bottle it in a vacuum. 



Yet nothing in reality is more of a changing flux than the body 

 in all of its parts and tissues and organs. And of all these, the 

 glands of internal secretion stand out as the most susceptible to 

 change. Made to react to stimuli of offense and defense, instan- 

 taneously responsive to situations involving energy exchanges and 

 protective reflexes, they are never for any minute the same or 

 alone. They never function separately. Each influences the 

 other in a communicating chain. Let one be disturbed, and all 

 the others will feel the impact of the disturbance and vibrate 

 with it. 



Any break in the somatic or psychic equilibrium, a blow or an 

 infection, or a startling thing seen, or a worrisome thought felt, 

 will start a process going. This will only wind up when every 

 gland has been somehow touched, and a final equilibrium re- 

 established. The thyroid, maybe, was first excited, and then in 

 turn the adrenals, with a boomerang reinforcing effect upon 

 the thyroid, and at the same time a stimulating effect upon the 

 pituitary. Each gland is thus influenced and influencing, agent 

 and reagent in the complex adjustments of the organism. 



Endocrine Co-operations 



The body-mind is a perfect corporation. Not quite perfect, 

 for continually there arise little insurgencies, inadequacies and 

 frictions to which in time it will succumb. Yet, in the efficiency 

 of its co-operations, and in the co-ordination of the needs and 



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