PREFACE 



Monkey glands; clever men and stupid ones; 

 glands as the cause of crime; the origin of races; the 

 mentally unbalanced; many acute diseases; "the 

 bearded lady, the giant, the fat boy and the midget" ; 

 all these and more have been dealt with under the 

 subject of glands of internal secretion (also called 

 ductless or endocrine glands). As in any subject 

 that fires the popular imagination, fact and fancy 

 have been mixed, several drops of fact have been 

 largely diluted with many drops of fancy. The 

 achievements, judged by rigid scientific standards, 

 are no more than modest, but the possibilities are 

 limitless. It is because of these vast possibilities 

 that an imagination, not sufficiently tempered by 

 self-criticism, is apt to enlarge a molehill into a 

 mountain. 



The glands discussed in this book, the ductless or 

 endocrine glands, regulate the activities of the or- 

 ganism little less than does the brain itself. Let but 

 one of these bodies stop functioning, or let it func- 

 tion imperfectly, and injuries to various parts of the 



IX 



