A GIANT’S GLANDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 May 1936, Page 8

A GIANT’S GLANDS

HOW MONSTROSITIES DEVELOP Robert Wadlow burst into print in the United. States recently. He had not committed a murder; he had not broken a world’s record for swimming a hundred yards or sitting on a flagpole; he had, in fact, done nothing more sensational than reach the age of IS. Just by being himself he managed to attract the attention of about 1200 newspaper editors. For Robert is Sft 4in tall, weighs 3901 b. wears No.

39 shoes costing 86 dollars a pair, and tosses his 1501 b normal father about as if he weighed only 150 ounces. Freak? Yes. But a freak for which there is now some explanation, whereas 50 years ago there was none. Something is wrong with Robert’s pituitary gland, which lies beneath the brain. “Master gland,” the more imaginative medicos call it. For it controls not only growth but sex and milk secretion. There is undoubtedly a connection between the pituitary and the thyroid and parathyroid glands in the neck, the thymus and the cortex or “bark” of the suprarenals. which lie just above the kidneys and determine how pugnacious and energetic we are. No wonder Nature buried the pituitary deep in the skull for protection. Inject the growth hormone extracted from the anterior or front lobe of the pituitary and a prodigious increase in size and weight follows in rats and certain species of dogs. But injection of large doses in a 17-year-old undersized boy had no effect. The reason is not wholly clear. The abil-

of the tissues to respond is one .actor. No amount of growth hormone can transform a hereditary dwarf into a giant. Obscure as the action of the gland still is. there can be no doubt that the bulldog is a pituitary freak. Something is wrong with his glands—above all, with his pituitary. Technically, he is what the doctors call an aeondroplasic dwarf. The other extreme is acromelagy—giantism in plain English. Bloodhounds. mastiffs and St. Bernards are examples. They have so much skin that it wrinkles on the forehead and muzzle. The bones of the legs are big and heavy. Human giants are usually acromelagics. Their hands and feet are too large for their bodies. Unsymmetrical development results in a gorilTa-like monstrosity.