APPLICATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 261 



in varying degrees, signs of a similar degeneration. Thyroid 

 feeding, properly controlled, will clear up certain of the deteriora- 

 tions of mind and body observable in the aged. The grossness 

 of the features lessens, a number of the pains go, muscular en- 

 durance increases, memory and intelligence do not remind one so 

 forcibly of the old dotard in his second childhood. Of course the 

 improvement at present achievable is only relative. But in the 

 prematurely aging, decay invading a half accomplished maturity, 

 marvels have been achieved at times with feeding of the gland. 



The pituitary, too, begins to retrogress after the period of ma- 

 turity. And an early retrogression means a short maturity. In 

 women, the onset of an obesity, and coincidently, of a lazy and 

 dull morale, coincides with this declension of the pituitary powers. 

 All the glands of internal secretion, in fact, shrink and shrivel 

 as old age advances. Only, as in other relationships, the pre- 

 dominating endocrine stamps its signature more visibly upon the 

 documents of decadence than the others. Pituitary types, as said, 

 get fat and slow, thyroidal become bulky and stupid or thin 

 and sour, the adrenal dark, shrunken and forever tired of life. 

 So type emerges, even in all-around glandular deficiency. 



The problem of rejuvenation is the problem of recharging, or 

 replacing all of the glands of internal secretion, at least the most 

 important, the thyroid, the pituitary and the adrenals, as well, 

 as the gonads. Longevity is perhaps largely a matter of pre- 

 venting, or postponing their wane. Beside, there is the prophy- 

 laxis of bacterial infections, and their all embracing corrosions 

 — which, too, have an endocrine aspect. 



Persistence of youth or juvenility may be manufactured by 

 nature in two ways. There may be a persistence of early glandu- 

 lar predominances. We have seen what happens to the thymo- 

 centric. That a pineal-centered juvenile or infantile type exists 

 may be safely predicted. Nature's only other mode of securing 

 perpetual youth seems to be by prolonging the time allotted to 

 the sex gland crescendo. 



As for the golden age of maturity itself, what humdrum people 

 and poets have despised as middle age, the margin of reserve of 

 the ruling hormone is a quantity almost malleable in our hands, 

 but still to be regarded with respect as a hard cold proposition 

 by the physiologist. In general, the continuance of any stage of 

 development means the maintaining of the glandular adminis- 

 tration peculiar to it. So the chubby debonair irresponsible 

 whom nothing can touch is happy in the possession of a pineal 



