Part 18 (1/2)
Natural ability grows in an endocrine soil of a particular kind, perhaps affected by the internal secretions much as natural soil is by fertilizers like phosphates or nitrates. Increased production follows increased fertilization. Natural disability must vary similarly with a perversion or improper mixture, deficiency or absence of the hormones that combine in natural ability.
It is a.s.sumed as a matter of course that the brain itself is there, which, to carry out our a.n.a.logy, means that the crude soil or earth is there. Sufficient quant.i.ty and adequate quality of nerve tissue must be regarded as prerequisite. If the brain has been damaged in any way during development or birth, if it has been smashed up in any way, or if it has failed to evolve the minimum number of healthy nerve cells, the endocrine influence becomes negligible. It is like attempting to insert a key into a door which has no lock.
It is among the specimens of normality of the brain cells that we may look for our examples of endocrine mental deficiency. Included are all sorts of examples of feeble-mindedness varying from the moron to the imbecile and idiot, arrested brain life. The cretin is the cla.s.sic type of mental deficiency due to endocrine insufficiency, curable or improvable by the proper handling.
Insanity, degeneration of the normal brain life, may be caused by an upset of the endocrine balance. Among the commonest manifestations of insanity are excitements and depressions, apathies and manias, hallucinations, delusions and obsessions, all of which are reproducible under known conditions of internal secretion excess or failure. Alternating states of mania and depression are caused in some instances by extreme hyperthyroidism. The critical periods of life, when a profound revolution is overturning the endocrine equilibrium, p.u.b.erty, pregnancy, and the menopause, are the periods of most frequent occurrence of insanity, when mental instability reveals endocrine instability (Dementia praec.o.x, pregnancy psychosis, menopause neurosis). Actual insanity need not be the only manifestation. By far the greater number of mental disturbances due to aberrations of the internal secretions never see an asylum or a doctor. They live more or less close to the borderline of insanity as persons who have spells, eccentricities and peculiarities, hysteria, tics or just ”nervousness.”
About two-thirds of mental deficiency is definitely inherited, about one-third acquired. It is the opinion of a number of psychologists that it is inherited as what the Mendelians call a recessive, that is as a trait which will be overshadowed, if there is admixture of normal mentality, but will crop up by breeding with another mental defective.
What we know of the endocrine factors in heredity leads us to suppose that it is the mating of one marked endocrine insufficiency with another that is often responsible for the inherited tendency to feeble-mindedness and insanity. The effect of the hormone system upon the vegetative apparatus may create the more obscure insanities and quasi-insanities. The direct action of the internal secretions upon the brain cells, producing a sort of hair trigger situation within them, may cause the explosive discharges from them which appear as overpowering impulses or uncontrollable conduct. The waves of feeling which precede them are unquestionably endocrine determined. The wave of fear a cat experiences upon seeing a dog is accompanied and indeed preceded by an increase of the amount of adrenalin in the blood. The picture of fright, as observed in a so-called normal person, staring eyes, trembling hands, dry lips and mouth, corresponds to the portrait of the appearance in hyperthyroidism. In persons afflicted with uncontrollable impulses, the inhibiting hormones may not be present in sufficient quant.i.ty.
Feeble-mindedness, ranging from stupidity to imbecility, may also be a direct effect of insufficient endocrine supply to the brain cells.
When there is not enough of the thyroid secretion in the blood, the tissue between the cells in the brain become clogged and thickened, so that a gross barrier to the pa.s.sage of the nerve impulses is created.
We have here an ill.u.s.tration of internal secretion lack actually producing gross changes in the brain. But without a doubt, most endocrine influences upon the brain, at work every minute and second of its life, are the subtle ones of molecular chemistry and atomic energetics. We know that such mental qualities as irritability and stupidity, fatigability, and the power to recover quickly or slowly from fatigue, s.e.xual potency and impotence, apathy and enthusiasm are endocrine qualities. We know also that the thyroid dominant tends to be irritable and excitable, the pituitary deficient to be placid and gentle, the adrenal dominant to be a.s.sertive and pugnacious, the thymus-centered to be childish and easy-go-lucky and the gonad deficient to be secretive and shy. This brings us to the relation of the internal secretions to the type of personality as a whole.
CHAPTER X
THE TYPES OF PERSONALITY
THE ENDOCRINE PERSONALITY
If a single gland can dominate the life history of an individual it becomes possible to speak of _endocrine types_, the result of the _endocrine a.n.a.lysis_ of the individual. Studying endocrine traits of physique, life reactions, disease tendencies, hereditary history and blood chemistry, one may gain an insight into the composition or const.i.tution of an individual. The endocrine type of an individual is a summary of these, his behaviour in the past, and is also a prediction of his reactions in the future, much as a chemical formula outlines what we believe to be the skeleton of a compound substance as deducible from its properties under varying conditions. Only, admittedly, as yet the endocrine label is but roughly qualitative and most crudely quant.i.tative, whereas the chemical formula is the essence of the exact.
However, the fact remains that though we are only upon the first rungs of the ladder, we are upon the ladder. The horizon undoubtedly broadens. We possess a new way of looking upon humanity, a fresh transforming light upon those strange phenomena, ourselves. Of the ugly achievements of that dreadful century, the nineteenth, the most illuminating was the discovery of itself as the _ape-parvenu._ Yes, we are all animals now, it said to itself, and set its teeth in the cut-throat game of survival. But there was no understanding in that evil motto of a disillusioned heart. The ape-parvenu, desperately lonely and secretive, has still to understand himself.
Let us be clear if we can. There is perhaps a certain presumption in the phrase, the endocrine type. It is ambitious, and perhaps will not fulfill its promise. But it is useful because it points a parallel and an ideal. As Wilhelm Ostwald never tired of repeating, H_{2}O is a complete shorthand record for the bundle of qualities commonly known as water. It is an example of that highest task of mind, synthesis.
It is the highest synthesis of the studies of the internal secretions that certain combinations of them, permutations and blendings of them, are responsible for those unique wonders of the universe, personalities.
The riddle of personality! Are we at last upon the track of its uncovering? That elusive mystery, which philosophers have wrapped in the thousand veils of Greek and Latin words, and psychologists, even unto the third and fourth generation of Freudians, have floundered about in, moles before a dazzling sun, is it to be unwound for our inspection? Think of the human soul. What an invisible, intangible chameleon is its true reality! Watch it, and you see something that seems to uncurl and expand like a feather with exultation and delight and joy, to contract and stiffen into a billiard ball with fear and pride, shrewd caution and vigilant malevolence, to rear back and spark fire like lightning with anger and temper, and to crawl and slither with abjection and smirking slyness, when it needs to. This multiplex Thing-Behind-Life, are we really about to dissect it into its elements?
Personality embraces much more than merely the psychic attributes. It is not the least important of the lessons of endocrine a.n.a.lysis that there is no soul, and no body, either. Rather a soul-body, or body-soul, or the patterns of the living flame. The closer tracking of the internal secretions leads us into the secrets of the living flame, why it lives, and how it lives, the strange diversities of its colorings and music and the odd variations in its energy, vitality and longevity. Why it flickers, why it flares and glares, spurts, flutters, burns hard or soft, orange-blue or yellow.
The medieval scholiasts, who fought as fiercely about names as nations about territories, divided men into the sanguine, the bilious, the lymphatic and the nervous. It was a pretty crude cla.s.sification of different const.i.tutions. The endocrine criteria, more exact and concrete, divide them into the adrenal centered, the thyroid centered, the thymus centered, the pituitary centered, the gonad centered, and their combinations.
THE ADRENAL PERSONALITIES
An adrenal personality is one dominated by the ups and downs of his adrenal gland. In the large, the curve of his life is the curve of secretion by this gland, both of its Cortex and medulla. Such an adrenal personality is entirely normal, within the definition of the normal as something not threatening the duration of life, nor comfortable adaptation to it. So are the other glandular types. No sharp line can be drawn between the normal and the abnormal in any case, the borderland is wide, the transitions many.
The skin is one of the chief clues to the adrenal personality. The relation between the adrenal and the skin dates way back in the evolutionary scale, for adrenalin has been isolated directly from pigment deposits in the epidermis of frogs. Skin pigment bears a direct relation to the reaction of the organism to light, especially the ultraviolet rays, to the radiation of heat, and hence to the fundamental productions and consumptions of energy by the cells. So the gland of energy for emergencies writes its signature always all over the skin.
In an adrenal personality, the epidermis is always slightly, somewhat, or deeply pigmented. The pigmentation is due to a dark brown deposit lightly or thickly scattered over the skin. With the general diffuse pigmentation or darkening there are often the black spots, the pigmented birth marks, or the lighter ones of freckles. The latter signify some permanent or transitory adrenal inadequacy in the past, ante-natal or post-natal, of the individual, and presage the same in his future. These spots have been frequently observed to appear after an attack of diphtheria or influenza. There seems to be more tuberculosis among those who have them than those who do not. We therefore say that diphtheria, influenza and tuberculosis stand out as adrenal-attacking diseases, which have a greater power to kill, cripple or hurt those with defective adrenal const.i.tutions than others.
The hair of the adrenal type is characteristic: ubiquitous, thick, coa.r.s.e and dry. It is prominent over the chest, abdomen and back, and has a tendency to kink. Often its color is not the expected: an Italian's will be yellow, a Norwegian's jet black. It has been stated that most red-haired persons are adrenal types. Such persons also have well-marked canine teeth which is another adrenal trait. They also have a low hair line.
When the adrenal type has a properly co-operating pituitary and thyroid, he possesses a striking vigor, energy and persistence. With a fortunate combination, he develops into a progressive winning fighter, arriving at the top in the long run every time.
Brain work is pretty well lubricated in the well-compensated adrenal type. Brain f.a.g is closely a.s.sociated with, if not dependent upon, adrenal f.a.g, particularly of the cortex. Brain tissue and adrenal cortex tissue are near relatives, and a normal human brain never develops without a normal adrenal cortex. The adrenal type with an hypertrophied adrenal cortex is always efficient.
Among women, the adrenal type is always masculinoid. If physically feminine--due to adequate feminine reactions on the part of the other endocrines--she will at least show the qualities of a psychic virilism. A generation ago, such a woman had to repress her inherent trends and instincts in the face of public opinion and law, and so suffered from a feeling of inferiority. Nowadays, these women are striding forward and will attain a good many of the masculine heights, commanding responsible executive positions and high salaries. An adrenal type will probably be the first woman president of the United States.
However, that presupposes a normal range of action of the other endocrines. Let there be some quirk or weakness elsewhere in the chain of hormones, and instead of the successful woman, behold the spinsters, the maiden aunts, the prudes and cranks who never satisfactorily adapt themselves in society. To them must be given a good deal of credit for the suffrage revolution. These unadapted adrenals, as we may call them, once sowed the seeds, expending their masculinism in the struggles of the pioneers' martyrdoms, preparing the harvest their sisters, the more adequate adrenal types, will now reap. The unadapted adrenals of today will have to look for new worlds to conquer.