The Foundations of Personality | Page 8

Southern France, Spain, Upper Italy and Switzerland. It is characterized
mainly by marked dwarfism and imbecility, so that the adult untreated
cretin remains about as large as a three or four-year-old child and has
the mental level about that of a child of the same age. But, this
comparison as to intelligence is a gross injustice to the child, for it
leaves out the difference in character between the child and the cretin.
The latter has none of the curiosity, the seeking for experience, the
active interest, the pliant expanding will, the sweet capacity for
affection, friendship and love present in the average child. The cretin is
a travesty on the human being in body, mind and character.
But feed him thyroid gland. Mind you, the dried substance of the
glands, not of human beings, but of mere sheep. The cretin begins to
grow mentally and physically and loses to a large extent the
grotesqueness of his appearance. He grows taller; his tongue no longer
lolls in his mouth; the hair becomes finer, the hands less coarse, and the
patient exhibits more normal human emotions, purposes, intelligence.
True, he does not reach normality, but that is because other defects
beside the thyroid defect exist and are not altered by the thyroid
feeding.
There is a much more spectacular disease to be cited, --a relatively
infrequent but well-understood condition called myxoedema, which
occurs mainly in women and is also due to a deficiency in the thyroid
secretion. As a result the patient, who may have been a bright, capable,
energetic person, full of the eager purposes and emotions of life,

gradually becomes dull, stupid, apathetic, without fear, anger, love, joy
or sorrow, and without purpose or striving. In addition the body
changes, the hair becomes coarse and scanty, the skin thick and swollen
(hence the name of the disease) and various changes take place in the
sweat secretion, the heart action, etc.
Then, having made the diagnosis, work the great miracle! Obtain the
dried thyroid glands of the sheep, prepared by the great drug houses as
a by-product of the butcher business, and feed this poor, transformed
creature with these glands! No fairy waving a magical wand ever
worked a greater enchantment, for with the first dose the patient
improves and in a relatively short time is restored to normal in skin,
hair, sweat, etc., and MIND and character! To every physician who has
seen this happen under his own eyes and by his direction there comes a
conviction that mind and character have their seat in the organic
activities of the body,--and nowhere else.
An interesting confirmation of this is that when the thyroid is
overactive, a condition called hyperthyroidism, the patient becomes
very restless and thin, shows excessive emotionality, sleeplessness, has
a rapid heart action, tremor and many other signs not necessary to detail
here. The thyroid in these cases is usually swollen. One of the methods
used to treat the disease is to remove some of the gland surgically. In
the early days an operator would occasionally remove too, much gland
and then the symptoms, of myxoedema would occur. This necessitated
the artificial feeding of thyroid the rest of the patient's life! With the
proper dosage of the gland substance the patient remains normal; with
too little she becomes dull and stupid; with too much she becomes
unstable and emotional!
There are plenty of other examples of the influence of the endocrines
on mind, character and personality. I here briefly mention a few of
these.
In the disease called acromegaly, which is due to a change in the
pituitary gland, amongst other things are noted "melancholic tendencies,
loss of memory and mental and physical torpor."

A very profound effect on character and personality, exclusive of
intelligence, is that of the sex glands. One need not accept the Freudian
extravagances regarding the way in which the sex feelings and
impulses enter into our thoughts, emotions, purposes and acts. No
unbiased observer of himself or his fellows but knows that the
satisfaction or non-satisfaction of the sex feeling, its excitation or its
suppression are of great importance in the destinies of character.
Further, man as herdsman and man as tyrant have carried on huge
experiments to show how necessary to normal character the sex glands
are.
As herdsman he has castrated his male Bos and obtained the ox. And
the ox is the symbol of patience, docility, steady labor, without lust or
passion,--and the very opposite of his non-castrated brother, the bull.
The bull is the symbol of irritability and unteachableness, who will not
be easily yoked or led and who is the incarnation of lust and passion.
One is the male transformed into neuter gender; and the other is
rampant with the fierceness of his sex.
Compare the eunuch and the