have backed up to the hilt his argument, which he had to elaborate on the indirect grounds of analogy and induction.  Essential for defense, and for protection,—­ an organ in which everything necessary for the stratagems of retreat, or the offensives of attack, are supplied ad libitum, while everything non-essential or detrimental to the matter of the moment is inhibited, arrested and suppressed—­no more perfect sample of the design with which Life is drenched could be imagined by the most closeted of passionate idealists.

FAILURE OF THE ADRENALS

As the gland of acute stress and strain, the adrenals in modern life are called upon to function more heavily and frequently than in the past.  As a matter of fact, the life of the beast of jungle and field, as well as of savage and barbarian, is just as full of emergencies and shocks as that of the average city man or woman.  In the case of the latter, however, inhibitions, education, and the conditions of modern living, improper food, sedentary indoor confinement, and universal rack and noise, have undoubtedly made greater and greater demands upon the adrenal glands.  Chemical quantitative studies have shown that by repeated stimulation, the adrenal glands may be exhausted of their reserve supply of secretion, which returns only insufficiently if not enough time is given for recuperation.  There results a condition of temporary or chronic adrenal insufficiency, supposedly an insufficient functioning of the gland as a whole.  In persons so afflicted there appears a fatigability, a sensitiveness to cold, cold hands and feet, which are sometimes mottled bluish-red, a loss of appetite and zest in life, and a mental instability characterized by an indecision, and a tendency to worry, a weepishness upon the slightest provocation.

A certain number of the temporary breakdowns or nervous prostrations, which seem to be growing more common or fashionable, may be sometimes traced to such a deficiency of normal response to the needs of everyday conflict by the adrenal gland.  In some, mental and physical elasticity are totally lost, and even the slightest exertion in either field often causes so much weariness and exhaustion as to be prohibited.  Depression and even melancholia are associated with the fear of not being able to accomplish good work hitherto easy and enjoyed.  Sometimes they are obsessed with the thought that they have lost their nerve completely, and so dread to commit themselves in even the most trivial of situations.  The vacillating frame of mind is so distressing at times as to arouse thoughts of suicide.  When these symptoms concur in the type of personality whom I shall describe as the unstable adrenal-centered individual, there is evidence for explaining the process as the effect of an insufficiency of secretion by the adrenal gland.