TRANSFORMING A COWARD

Evening Star, Issue 17921, 17 March 1922, Page 7

TRANSFORMING A COWARD

EFFECT OF DIETING GLANDS,

MEDICINE’S CLAIMS,

Would you like to be a rabbit or a lion if you had your choice ? By feeding certain secretive glands with different substances, it is said by a modern school of physicians, you will be‘able to approach your ambition. That is, as we may take it for granted you would prefer to have lion-like qualities ol strength, endurance, and courage instead of bunny's furtive, apprehensive disposition, you may become the former by a. system of dieting and feeding your endocrine, which are your secretive glands. Dr Percy Fricdenbcrg, of New York, told the Pennsylvania Medical Society in Philadelphia of his experiments and the work of Dr Crile and other physicians in discovering just what service the endocrine glands give to man and animal in the development of physical and mental traits. Besides furnishing mSuis to control that popular and universal malady which passes under t-ho vague name of " nerves, ’’ lie showed how criminal inclinations and inconi, potency m children may bo modified by proper treatment of the endocrine glands and the dietary regulation of food. While all the functions of the endocrine system are not yet definitely known, enough symptoms have been tabulated to justify the statement that by correctly treating the secretive glands doctors ca-i now absolutely cure tho mysterious “ nerves.” ‘‘l know how natural it is to write a popular story of a medical subject,” said Dr Fricdenbevg, “and 1 also know that to flaunt a ‘ euro all,’ a ‘ panacea,’ is the most popular thing a writer can do. But I wish to deny at the outset in very earnest language 'that there is anything miraculous in the modern treatment of t-ho secretive glands. “To say, as has been reported, that a perfectly balanced endocrine system will make a man immortal, will grow’ hair on a bald bond, will stretch out short m-cn and diminish giants, is a statement that may catch and tickle tho car of the credulous. But such exaggeration makes the subject ridiculous and ends before it begins any serious discussion of it. Tho results of (be application of the proper food to starved glands aro wonderful enough without resorting to foolish exaggeration. “What giver, a man a headache on his receipt of bad nows? What is it causes him to lose his appetite, when ho is highly excited over something, whether it ifi pleasurable or painful? “ For more years than I can number the answer to both these queries was the allembracing one ‘Nerves,’ ami these were supposed to be purely mental. “Dr Crile-, of Detroit, started out to find exactly where the individual has fear, or anger, or apprehension, of any emotion whatsoever.

“ By eliminating the activity of tho cranial nerves he found that these emotions still swept across tho human being. Where woro they located? By the study of patients innumerable and by still further eliminations he carried on his study of the emotions which arc reactions to innumerable sources of gladness, contentment, and joy, all kinds of pleasurable tilings, as well as innumerable sources of danger and its concomitants.

“He determined, as other psychologists had found, that tho intellect proper is absolutely free from pleasures and pains. These resided somewhere else, and were but telegraphed to the mind. “All emotions produce nervous reactions, not in the brain, but in tho system; and these reactions have a definite purpose. The physicians duty when he would minister to a mind disturbed by any -one of n list of powerful reactions is to find its habitat and deaf with it. We omit from this statement reactions duo to tho sensory nerves, thoso given us by hearing, eight, touch, etc. We seek to 2nd tho more mysterious reactions which nr-e more powerful. “These are found to permeate tho system. All the endocrine glands feed thorn, because the reaction is carried everywhere by the Wood. The reaction has been proved to bo circulatory. Tho conclusion drawn from all experiments is that emotion acts on certain organs of tho body, producing substances that are soluble in the blood and circulate in it.

“ These substances can be acted on by various medicaments, some of which, like strychnine, aro poison, yet arc for this use highly beneficial. ” Certain well-known drugs also act on these substances, and as, for instance, in a moment of danger, where tho reaction of the individual is not that of defence, they tone up his muscles and put him in a state of defence.

“Fear, as word definers older than Webster havo said, is the ' race memory of flight.’ Its features aro well known; they involve tho trembling of the limbs, the catching of the breath, all the things one sees in a man after an exhaustive fight. “ Now, this kind of reaction to the emotion of fear which is shown by the substance produced by an endocrine gland can be counteracted by certain typical drugs or, if you please, poisons applied to this gland. Tho application of drugs to glands like the adrenoi (vicinity of kidneys) and the thyroid { (in the neck) has been for years common, and the effects sufficiently obvious. But nob so well known is tho established fact that other glands may be acted on in relation to body growth, bone development, fat distribution, and the location of hair on body and head. “In children of backward development of body and brain wonderful progress has been made by this application of remedies to tho seat of tho trouble, a gland which does not function properly, giving out too great a quantity of its substance to bo circulated by tbo blood or lying dormant. The type of child known to medicine as the Mongolian idiot is particularly amenable to treatment by feeding tho thyroid with extracts it lacks.

“A proper balance of tho endocrine glands is highly important. A too great distribution of some gland or other may produce an excessive bony growth, giving the appearance of a giant; too little given to tho blood by the same gland would result in a defective growth, and the resulting creature would be a dwarf.

“The catching of colds varies at all ages, some individuals being specially susceptible in spite of precautions against draughts and operatione performed for adenoids and tonsils. Gland treatment frequently clears up such tendencies, which we call in medicine susceptibilities or the diothesis of a disease. I have dwelt only enough oil this part of the story to indicate what an important role tho endocrine glands play in normal development and health.” Diet, exorcise, and sunlight are to be prescribed to tho people who need them, and, generally lipeaking, these potent agents are most influential in the endocrine system. Diet is indeed, according to this physician, the most powerful of them all. While few of these interesting human nature facts can bo attributed to researches made by any one man, still attached to them almost as a pioneer in the held is the name of Dr Olio (writes Willis Slcell in the ‘New York Herald’). A resume of what ho has said and written of them will nob be out. of place here, particularly as Dr Eitedenherg started off by invoking his name.

Dr Crile believes that characteristics peculiar to animals are to be explained by means of their endocrine system. Thus the homo is nervous, alert, swift because of the tic* veloptnont of certain secretive glands, and because of the greater ascendency of other glands the ox is slow, placid, and patient. For similar reasons the lion is a hunter and the rabbit is hunted. Every animal has the endocrine glands, which go with a particular mode of life.

■Man, according to this authority, is not so simple, and may not thus easily bo ticketed and placed on a shelf, for many other things enter into his make-up, notably what ho inherits and what is brought out in him by environment and training. Basically, though, ho has something of the characteristics of all the animals included with the higher things that distinguish humanity from the beast.

Yet all arc susceptible of change, and this change may be, nay, should be, one of improvement. Thus it is believed by Dr Crile, and in a measure by Dr Fricdonberg, that by the administration of a proper drug that shall work on the blood of the cowardly man his nervous tremors shall bo removed, and ho may become less easily routed by fear.