CHAPTER IX 



THE BACKGROUNDS OF PERSONALITY 



The question of moods and sublimations once raised introduces 

 the problem of the relation of neuroses, nervous disorders with- 

 out an organic disease basis, and mental abnormalities, to the 

 endocrine system. Obviously, in view of all the influences ex 

 by the ductless glands upon every organ and function of the 

 body and mind, and their intermediary, the vegetative nervous 



ation must exist. Observations accumulated, 

 of which have been referred to in the preceding chapters, prove 

 the complete, though complex, reality of such a deduction. 



The history of attitudes toward nerve and mental disordt 

 a remarkable illustration of the vicissitudes of ignorance playing 

 with words. The Greeks, swayed and dazzled as they were by 

 the magic of words which they discovered, yet never pern 

 themselves to be fooled by them. As an explanation for the 

 phenomena of hysteria in women, that benign mental disorder 

 xcellence, they had the theory of a wandering about of 

 the womb in the organism as a cause. That provided an image 

 of something material happening as an explanation. With the 

 phfl of anatomy after (he Renaissance, that naive view had 

 to be l 1. In its place the humoral theory held sway, with 



its good humors and its bad humors, and their bilious, lymphatic, 



-us and s admixtures. Hut tfa 



of all flesh. Dm :irst half of the nineteenth cental 



paraphrased by practitioner! of medi- 

 the effii 



these I indeed today have filtered e\ 



into the common consciousness. 



Mae of the in r ht, food and i 



condu ob frith neurotic- 



I 1 -!--. « : ■ !• :l\ the sexual. A rich field was created tor 



weeds periodi 

 We have seen hon the American, B< 

 inspired bj uted ■ loss of toi 



ISO 



