SOME HISTORIC PERSONAGES 233 



at a time. After battles, the trouble became worse so that it 

 interfered with his riding. Constitutional difficulties in urination 

 have been connected definitely with the function of the pituitary. 

 The other pituitary disturbances which tinctured his life were 

 certain "brain storms," attacks of vomiting followed by "stupor 

 verging on unconsciousness" brought on by outbursts of temper, 

 physical overexertion, mental strain, or sexual excitement. It 

 has been shown that such epileptic tendencies are present in 

 subjects of pituitary disease, particularly those with pituitary 

 instability. In Napoleon's case the brain attacks may have been 

 crises of pituitary insufficiency in a hyper-pituitary type. This 

 supposition is borne out by the headache which followed them, the 

 headache of an oversecreting pituitary compensating for a defect 

 in its formation. During his prime, his intellect was mathe- 

 matical, logical, and rational, and remarkable for a prodigious 

 memory. Such an intellect is the product of an extraordinary 

 ante-pituitary. That he never permitted feeling to interfere 

 with the dictates of his judgment, a quality which rendered him 

 the most unscrupulous careerist of history, must be put down to 

 an insufficiency of the post-pituitary. What post-pituitary does 

 to the brain cells and the organism as a whole to render them 

 susceptible to sympathy and suggestion, the social sublimations 

 of the maternal instinct, with its offsprings of religion and art, 

 we have seen. Napoleon lacked a chemical trace of the religious 

 instinct, his sympathy was nil, and his conquests were made pos- 

 sible only because he was blind to the suffering and misery his 

 greed for glory and dominion generated. Post-pituitary insuf- 

 ficients of this type, patent or concealed, gradually become cor- 

 pulent as they grow older. The increasing corpulency of Napo- 

 leon was commented upon by all observers. 



A student of his make-up, and acquainted with present develop- 

 ments concerning the internal secretions, given an opportunity to 

 observe him as we have when he was alive, and at the height of 

 his success, would have had every reason for classing him a 

 pituitary-centered, ante-pituitary superior, post-pituitary inferior, 

 with an instability of both that would lead to his final degenera- 

 tion. Besides, his insatiable energy indicated an excellent thy- 

 roid, his pugnacity, animality and genius for practical affairs 

 a superb adrenal. Given the kind of pituitary he possessed, 

 with its great intellectual potential energy and the relation be- 

 tween the two parts which would further the objects of an intel- 

 lectual machine, plus a remarkable thyroid and adrenal, plus the 



