220 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
Of all the physical influences studied in recent years the most 
striking is that of the ductless glands.* | Every layman knows that 
thyroid insufficiency produces a cretinous type of mental defect, and 
that such defect may be cured or alleviated by the administration of 
glandular extracts. And just as thyroid insufficiency depresses, so 
thyroid excess may heighten, emotional states and reactions. _ Of other 
glands belonging to this class—the pituitary, the adrenal, and the sex 
glands—we know far less. But recent work upon their internal secre- 
tions has left no doubt as to their power over temperament and feelings. 
Shall we some day, when biochemistry is sufficiently advanced, be able 
to analyse the minute components of lymph and blood, and diagnose 
from the chemical constitution of small samples whether a man is over- 
sexed, or easily fatigued, timorous, excitable, or blessed with high 
vitality ? 
The work upon these endocrine organs seems destined at length to 
provide a scientific basis for the doctrine of physical signs—the tradi- 
tion so dear to the popular mind-readers of every place and time. The 
physical signs recommended for inspection are of two kinds: they refer 
either to the physique as a whole, or more specifically to the face or 
head. 
The ductless glands are closely connected with body metabolism as 
a whole. We seem here to find an unexpected confirmation of the 
popular division of ‘temperaments’ or ‘ constitutions’ into two or 
three chief types. The loose terms in vogue are, for the two extremes, 
‘ nutritional ’ or ‘ vital,” and ‘ nervous’ or ‘ mental’; and, for the inter- 
mediate, ‘motive,’ ‘ muscular,’ or ‘ mixed." * Three American physio- 
logists—Bryant, Goldthwait, and Dunham—whose observations on this 
point are more careful than most, quaintly term the triad ‘ herbivorous, ’ 
‘carnivorous,’ and ‘ omnivorous’ respectively, thus claiming a some- 
what speculative biological derivation for the supposed differences in 
digestion, metabolism, and general manner of life.* Three Italian 
physiologists, Viola, Naccarati, and De Giovanni, term the two 
extremes—the Hamlets and the Falstaffs of the psychological caste— 
microsplanchnic and macrosplanchnie respectively, or (in language less 
technical but more Shakespearean) little-bellied and big-bellied. By 
means of careful statistical correlations they have tried to prove that 
the ratio of height to weight. or better of limbs to trunk. may be taken 
as a trustworthy index of the so-called ‘morphological type,’ and is 
“It is unfortunate for the general reader that the only systematic and non- 
technical account of the subiect is the somewhat uncritical book by Dr. Berman 
on The Glands Regulating Personality, a work as full of ingenious speculations 
as it is devoid of documented references. 
5 This threefold division is fonnd in most phrenological handbooks. Of 
these the least unscientific is Dr. Bernard Hollander’s Scientific Phrenoloay 
(a title which is something of a contradictio in adjectivo) ; see pn. 38-48). The 
distinction, in its modern form, seems to have originated with Dr.’ Alexander 
Walker, a Lecturer on Anatomy at Edinburgh Universitv. and contemporary 
of the English phrenologist Combe. It will be observed that the dichotomy 
is apparently a simplification of the fourfold classification of temperaments, 
originating with Galen (a.p. 130). 
® For a convenient summary of the American literature see Lewis, 
‘ Adolescent Physical Types.’ Ped. Sem., 1916, xxiii., 3. 
