396 THE DUCTLESS GLANDS 



chapter I am indebted to an account of the subject written by 

 Hoskins in 1911. 



It is not always easy to determine from the phraseology 

 employed precisely what kind of a system is alleged to be 

 constituted by the association together of the various internally 

 secreting glands. A recent writer says that the animal body 

 is controlled by an " interlocking directorate " made up of the 

 glands of internal secretion, while in modern expositions of the 

 relations of the endocrinous organs we frequently find that the 

 " system " is made to include not only the adrenal bodies, the 

 thyroid glands, and the pituitary, along with the thymus, 

 parathyroid, and pineal, but also the reproductive organs, the 

 pancreas, liver, spleen, duodenum, small intestines generally, 

 the stomach, the uterus, and the mammary gland. When we 

 remember that certain authors refer to a "kinetic system" 

 (which includes the brain, the thyroid, the adrenals, the liver, 

 the pancreas, and the muscles), and that the whole of the 

 sympathetic nervous system is supposed to be under the con- 

 trol of the chromaphil tissues, and that the carbohydrate 

 metabolism of the body is alleged to be under the conjoint 

 control of the central nervous system, the liver, the pancreas, 

 the intestine, the chromaphil tissues, the thyroids and para- 

 thyroids, and the pituitary, it will be conceded that any 

 attempt to express all the asserted possible relationships 

 in diagrammatic form must result in failure. 



A summary of the connections postulated in the last para- 

 graph would amount to nothing less than a statement that the 

 various organs and tissues of the body are functionally related 

 to each other, and when the view is put forward that the 

 secretion of one of the ductless glands produces an effect upon 

 the nervous system as a whole or upon an important section 

 of it, this amounts to the allegation that the gland in question 

 exerts its influence upon practically the whole body. It may 

 be possible in the future, when our knowledge of the ductless 

 glands and indeed of physiology generally shall be consider- 

 ably greater than at present and if current views as to the 

 supreme directing influence of the internal secretions be 

 confirmed and substantiated, to formulate some satisfactory 

 theory according to which the organs of internal secretion 

 dominate the whole of the bodily activities, normal and 

 pathological. 



