DISCOVERY 



A MONTHLY POPULAR 

 JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE 



Vol. Ill, No. 28. APRIL 1922. 



PRICE Is. NET. 



DISCOVERY. A Monthly Popular Journal of Know- 

 ledge. 



Edited by Edward Liveing, B.A., Rothersthorpe, 

 Northampton, to whom all Editorial Communications 

 should be addressed. (Dr. A. S. Russell continues to 

 act as Scientific Adviser.) 



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Editorial Notes 



Fifty years ago Charles Darwin published a bDok 

 called The Expression of the Emotions in Man and 

 Animals. In many ways this book consolidated the 

 foundations of the patient study, exp?rim:>nt, and re- 

 search since bestowed upon the functions and nature 

 of the ductless glands, or endocrine system, in the 

 bodies of men and animals. In this direction remark- 

 able discoveries have been made during the last h^lf- 

 century by English, American, and German physio- 

 logists, the results of which best known to the general 

 public consist in the enormous relief afforded, by the 

 feeing or injection of extract of the appropriate sheep 

 glands, notably of the thyroid, to parsons suffering from 

 insufficiency of secretions from such glands. During the 

 last few years some of the most striking researches in 

 this problem of physiology have been made by British 

 doctors and scientists, such as Langdon Brown ^ and 

 Swale Vincent, 2 and in the field of experimentation 

 with animals by Huxley and Hogben. Their work has 

 shown the extreme complexity of the ductless glands 

 in their relations with the rest of the human system, 



' See The Sympathetic Nervous System in Disease, Chapter II, 

 "The Sympathetic Nervous System in Relation, to the Endo- 

 crine Glands." (Henry Frowde and Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 

 105.); and a note on " The Position of the Th\Toid Gland in 

 the Endocrine System " {Brit. Med. Journal, January 21, 1922). 



' See Internal Secretion and Ductless Glands. (Edward 

 Arnold.) 



and how, after half a century's m^st careful study, we 



are only on the outskirts of a mDst biffling problem. 



***** 



In its wider issues it connects up with the problem 

 of personahty, which is being probed from a different 

 angle by psychologists. Undoubtedly we have in the 

 past disregarded the body as a factor in personality, 

 and have been incUned to consider it only as the casing 

 round a soul almost completely dissociated with it. 

 How far can we believe in such an idea in these days ? 

 Or, to put the question otherwise, how far are we 

 entitled by purely scientific proofs to disbeheve in it ? 

 These are questions which the average man and woman 

 have a right to ask of those scientists who are trying 

 to hammer a way into the light, and who do not and 

 cannot in their special work fall back on the " divine 

 revelation " of any religion. No conscientious scientist 

 can give them a definite answer to these questions. 

 But a physiologist would probably tell them, " There 

 is no doubt that the individual's physiological mode 

 of reaction has a vast bearing on his mental life," and 

 a psychologist that vice versa " the great effect of the 

 individual's mental processes on his physical processes 

 is beyond question." Further than this neither can 

 rightly proceed at present. They are working from 

 different angles. How far the two sciences can co- 

 operate is a question to which we will return later. 

 ***** 



Meanwhile there is always the danger of the extremist, 

 who does infinite harm to his own cause, and to the 

 general pubUc. On the table before us hes a book 

 entitled The Glands Regulating Personality.^ In this 

 book the author, so we are informed on the wrapper, 

 " shows how man's individuality is controlled by the 

 quahty and quantity of internal secretions acting in 

 him." The impression that his book seems intended 

 to leave on the minds of educated but unscientific 

 men is that personahty or the human soul is en- 

 tirely created and controlled by the endocrine glands 

 and their secretions in the body ; that the " types " 

 of personality vary according as the body is dominated 



3 By Louis Berman, M.D. (New York: The Macmillan 

 Company.) 



85 



