APPLICATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 267 



symptoms of overwork. That being impossible, he will have to be 

 satisfied with the answer that it is not a germ, but an internal 

 secretion, or rather a defect of internal secretion that is the 

 cause. 



Whether or not the adrenals have been damaged by past ex- 

 periences, and upon their capacity to respond to the necessities of 

 an occasion, fatigue reactions primarily depend. A quotation 

 from Sir James MacKenzie, most distinguished of modern English 

 students of medicine, summarizes the matter neatly. "Abelous, 

 and Langlois and Albanese have studied the relation of the ad- 

 renal bodies to fatigue. . . . They infer that the muscular 

 weakness following removal of the adrenals is due to toxic sub- 

 stances. In view of our present knowledge of the physiological 

 action of adrenaline in its various forms, it seems more probable 

 that the weakness is to be explained by the absence of the 

 normal tone producing internal secretions of the bodies in ques- 

 tion." In other words, the adrenals regulate muscle tone. They 

 produce nature's tonics for weary tissues. The chronic lassitude 

 of thousands of our generation, suffering from "that tired feeling," 

 may be put down to chronic adrenal insufficiency. 



It requires no superlative imagination to see that an adrenal 

 poor subject does not belong upon a job that involves muscle 

 stress over a long period, or indeed fatiguing conditions of any 

 sort. Nor that a thyroid poor individual is not the best choice 

 for a position that demands a keen, alert body and mind. In 

 the selection of executives, the nature and stamina of the pitui- 

 tary will undoubtedly be taken very seriously in the near future. 



A certain hocus-pocus concerning character reading, a per- 

 verted revival of the ancient phrenology and physiognomy, has 

 invaded the employment territory in America as the newest 

 charlatanism. The study of the internal secretions, including 

 blood and X-ray examinations, will surely assist the demand for 

 a truly scientific estimate of constitution and character that can 

 be relied upon in the classification and distribution of personnel. 



The Prospects for Public Health 



By their effects upon the endocrines, public health influences 

 like food, clothing, sleep and overpressure and last but not least, 

 disease, the so-called diseases of childhood, possess a tremendous 

 importance in limiting the output of the educable. They act to 

 subtract from and so to lower the rating, the capacity of the 



