HOW GLANDS INFLUENCE THE NORMAL BODY 121 



pituitary as one of the dominants in their composition. The 

 necessities of child-bearing determine a greater angle between 

 trunk and lower extremities in the female. Underactivity of 

 the pituitary, for instance, will prevent the development of the 

 normal angle. The ratio in length of the upper limbs to the 

 lower is a fairly constant relationship for each sex normally. 

 Deviations occur with a break somewhere in the chain of co- 

 operation of the internal secretions controlling the growth of 

 bone. 



Hands, Fingers and Toes 



The size and shape and general configuration of the hands, 

 fingers and toes are details that tell an endocrine tale. Students 

 of hands naturally have grouped them as the long slender and 

 the short, broad, the bony and the well-filled out, the tapering 

 fingers and the stumpy. The character of a hand is determined 

 anatomically by the length and breadth of the bones, the amount 

 and distribution of fat, and the thickness and elasticity of the 

 skin. Over these, the essential control lies in the pituitary and 

 the thyroid. So we find that pituitary types have, when there is 

 overseer etion, large bony, gross hands, spade-shaped, or when 

 there is undersecretion, hands that are plump, with peculiarly 

 tapering fleshy fingers. The hyperthyroid has long slender 

 fingers, the subthyroid pudgy, coarse, ugly foreshortened hands, 

 often cold, and bluish. 



Facial Types 



An artist will see in a face the past history of generations, a 

 narrative of the adventures of the blood, a record of tears and 

 smiles, wrinkles and dimples, the victories and defeats of buried 

 drudgery and romance. These signatures which the Faculty of 

 Life have scribbled or engraved over it as upon a diploma, be- 

 speak for him spiritual moments. To the student of the internal 

 secretions the lines, expressions, attitudes are important for they 

 tell of the state of tensions and strains in the vegetative appa- 

 ratus with which they are inseparably connected. It is when one 

 comes to the consideration of the face as a complex of brows, 

 eyes, nose, lips and jaws that he becomes most interested. For 

 in the modeling and tone of every one of the features each of the 

 endocrine glands has something to say. In consequence there 



