PROBLEMS OF MODERN SCIENCE 



subject during early life is proved from the fact 

 that, in cases where unfortunate persons have been 

 bedridden from birth and the skeleton has not been 

 affected by the pressures and pulls to which it 

 is usually subject, the bones, in certain respects, 

 retain their infantile characteristics of shape. 



During the last few years a very great deal of 

 attention has been attracted to certain small organs 

 in the body known as the ductless glands, which, 

 to quote Sir Wilmot Herringham, we modestly 

 conceal about our person. They include a small 

 rounded body, usually described as of the shape 

 and size of a cherry, but really no larger than a 

 fair-sized pea, which, contained in the cavity of the 

 skull, is suspended from the base of the brain, 

 slung therefrom by a short stalk. Another duct- 

 less gland, no larger than a barleycorn, lies 

 embedded in the recesses of the brain a small 

 object of some historical interest, as the ancient 

 anatomists regarded it as the seat of the soul. The 

 thyroid gland, a name made familiar by the daily 

 press, occupies the front of the neck, and its situa- 

 tion becomes very obvious when it is enlarged, as 

 is the case in goitre. The list is completed by two ' 

 small bodies contained in the belly and surmounting 

 the two kidneys, together with a somewhat diffuse 

 tissue termed collectively the interstitial glands. If 

 all the ductless glands were collected together they 

 could easily be accommodated in a small coffee- 

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