158 THE GLANDS REGULATING PERSONALITY 



explanation and an understanding of why child-bearing is a 

 nuisance. We know now that if C anicott's complexion 



became rotten and her hair fell out, it was because her thyroid 

 was not ad< o the demands of pregnancy, and that if her 



arches were falling, and her figure acquiring a potato bag dumpi- 

 her pituitary was insufficient. In all proba- 

 bility she was a thymus-centercd type, which accounts for much 

 of the material that goes to make up the novel. 



Different endocrine types react characteristically toward the 

 situations of pregnancy. The adrenal type may not be able to 

 respond with the necessary enlargement of its cortex which is 

 normal for the needs of gestation. So pigmentations, darkenings 

 and decolorations of the skin, especially of the face, the tradi- 

 tional chloasma develops. The hyperthyroid type may become 

 rply exaggerated, almost to the point of mania and psychosis. 

 The subthyroid will suffer an emphasis of her defect, and pass on, 

 because of pregnancy, to the truly diseased state of myxedema, 

 the state of dull, slow, stupid, semi-animal semi-idiocy. The 

 pituitary type becomes more masculinized. The face becomes 

 more triangular and coarser, the chin and cheek-bones mor© pro- 

 nounced, and there is a growth of all the bones, so that she is seen 

 to grow visibly in height and breadth, and in the size of the hands 

 and feet. Concomitantly, there is a changed, a more matured 

 and steadier outlook upon life, all due to stimulation of the I 

 terior pituitary, controller of growth, physical and mental. 



In general, the major endocrines, the pituitary, the adn 

 and the thyroid should hypertrophy and hyperf unction during 

 ■.rnancy. Should they not, should adverse mechanical circum- 

 stances or chemical malfunction prevent, dir< 

 A woman with the closed-in type of pituitary, shut up in a sm 

 Ua turcica, will suffer the 



will become fat, will frequently abort an- 



rise to t ! 

 (like typhoid or measles) which injured her thyroid i 

 may be poisoned by i 1 by 



the growing fetus, a xoellenci 



to render innocuous these poisons. Of adrenal insuffii lil- 



of the ad v sufficiently in j y, little 



i- kDOWn. Po ibly the corpus lutcuin, the endocrine formed of 



in 

 this respect. F« remabl 



l>le between I the 



corpus luteum, some 



