EFFECT OF THE GLANDS UPON A MAN’S CHARACTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18992, 11 February 1930, Page 8

EFFECT OF THE GLANDS UPON A MAN’S CHARACTER.

TO-DAY’S SIGNED ARTICLE.

Specially written for the “Star’/ by THEODORE DREISER.

When you consider that those hundreds of people who talk aloud to themselves on the street do so because of glandular disturbances, and that these same disturbances are allied with mental deficiency which in itself is caused by an unhealthy state of the glands, you may see the distance between what one believes a normal man and the criminal type. If the reactions of all persons are determined by their chemical state, as present-day endocrinology would have us believe, it seems as if one might have the key to one of the mysteries of life; nature’s never-ending witchery by which she replenishes the earth with new types of individuals. If it is an over-active thyroid gland which causes that strange phenomenon of sensitiveness and a keen mind that is responsible for a poet, and if it is the predominance of the interstitial-suprar-enal glands that produce the successful man, we have then a partial solution which only adds to the ever fascinating mystery of life itself. Doctrine of Free Will? There are many medical experts nowadays who tell us the story of glands, their effect on normal man as well as on the criminal; they give an idea of the difficulties under which endocrinologists work to make discoveries. Their battle with the conservative (so-called) men of their profession, is enough without having to combat on all sides the morally and religiously saturated, who hang tooth and nail to the doctrine of free will. The notion that gentleness, refinement and unselfishness may be caused by a chemical state of the body is far from flattering. And, moreover, it cuts under all the illusions that most men find necessary to their comfort in life. Since there are millions of neurons in the body, and the glands act selectively, sensitising some and desensitising others, you may get some idea of the years of work it will take to uncover the reactions caused by the hormones on each set of neurons. If the glandular state is responsible for all actions of individuals, and man, like the single cell, reacts not to moral teachings but to the irresistible grasp of nature, man becomes criminal not because he “got in the wrong crowd," as the religionists would say, but, by the same impulse that the moth is drawn to its destruction in the flame. And if he “refuses to see the light" and is given up by the moralists, is it because it is not within his control to change? Environment. And environment, where does it come in? Many millions of dollars have been spent every year to improve prison conditions, living conditions, and so on and so on, all with the hope of reducing crime. Yet it has not been reduced.. As many ruthless murders are committed to-day as a hundred years ago, before the various reform theories were at their height, as they are to-day. Crime has abated in no way. Murderers continue to come from the most respectable homes as well as from the slums—throwing an obstacle in the reasoning of the environmentalists. The murderer is no. longer strung up at the crossroads as a warning, but we have the electric chair now to satisfy the savage impulse of the mob for vengeance. The radical economists shout that the uneven division of property is responsible for crime, yet the examination of the glands of the criminals, reviews made of their lives and habits from the earliest years, the endocrinologists say, show that he was carried to his doom by no will of his own. Only treatment at a clinic from the earliest youth could have saved him from his fate. And not until the time when all subnormal and abnormal children are required to report to clinics for gland treatment will there be any sure way pf coping with crime.

Children chemically unbalanced react favourably to treatment. Underthyroid children who were deficients made great progress after the thyroid hormones of animals were administered. Then how can crime be done away with through more sanitary prisons? How can those whom nature has marked at birth with criminal instincts be taught successfully that it is wrong to steal? True, environment may make it simpler for one to start upon a life of crime. Some incipient criminals may be prevented by circumstances from being active in crime. Some American Immigrants. One interesting fact that is brought out is that the immigrant women from the Southern and Slavic countries frequently have normal children until they came to America. Accustomed to a peaceful agricultural country, they are unable to adapt themselves to this commercial land. Glandular disorders and defective, often monstrous, children, are the result. Often there has been no insanity in the family, the parents are normal, yet the mother brings an idiot into the world. It is not immigrants themselves who fill , American prisons; they are usually hard working and quite responsible, but it is the children of these immigrants who are often criminal types. The f&ct that women are chemically unfitted for the work that men do, and, nevertheless, insist through desire or necessity upon taking their place in the commercial world, is responsible for a large number of defectives and deficients.

Women cry for an equality with men that nature long ago denied them, and in trying to take it make themselves unfit for bearing normal children.

Whose Responsibility ? Many cases of glandular disorder are so slight at birth that they are unnoticeable. Often it is not until adolescence that they become prominent. Johnny will grow out of his disobedience. Mary will stop telling lies if she is spanked enough. But often they are no more responsible for these things than the hardened criminal who defies the judge dramatically, shows the utmost unconcern over his fate, and brings down upon himself the hardest possible sentence, is responsible for his acts. It remains that the public resent the escape of an alleged murderer or the commuting of a death sentence to life imprisonment. And to them the study of endocrine glands is another fad. And so it will undoubtedly continue for years. The murderer will ask the forgiveness of God for his sins before he goes to his death in the electric chair. Forgiveness? Society should ask forgiveness. (Anglo-American N.S. Copyright.)