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The Soul and its Mechanism - Glands and Human Behavior
2. Pituitary - location head - secretion of anterior gland unknown, secretion of posterior, pituitrin. Interest in the pituitary gland has been evidenced for centuries but until the late eighties so little was known about it that it was regarded as an organ of external secretion. It is really two glands in one. It is about the size of a pea and lies at the base of the brain a short distance behind the root of the nose. This gland has been called "nature's darling treasure," being cradled in a niche, like a "skull within a skull." As most of the glands do, in some form or other, it has a close relation to sex, and is also related to such periodic phenomena as sleep and sex epochs. We are told that it is a gland of continued effort, of energy consumption, and is essential to life. It is believed to stimulate the brain cells and to have a "direct and important bearing upon the personality." We are also informed that insufficient pituitary development causes, or at least accompanies conspicuous moral and intellectual inferiority, and lack of self-control; but that with a good pituitary development there will also be pronounced mental activity and endurance. It seems to have a very close connection with our emotional and mental qualities. [45] The pituitary, as we have said, is really two glands in one. The secretion of the post-pituitary is pituitrin. "The post-pituitary governs the maternal-sexual instincts and their sublimations, the social and creative instincts... It might be said to energize deeply the tender emotions... For all the basic sentiments (as opposed to the intellectualized self-protective sentimentalism), tender-heartedness, sympathy and suggestibility, are interlocked with its functions." The secretion of the ante-pituitary is unknown. "The ante-pituitary has been depicted as the gland of intellectuality... By intellectuality we mean the capacity of the mind to control its environment by concepts and abstract ideas." - Berman, Louis, M.D., The Glands Regulating Personality, p. 178. Dr. Berman also adds, "Mental activity is accompanied by increased function of the ante-pituitary, if intellectual, or of the post-pituitary, if emotional." - Ibid., p. 236. From a study of these comments, it becomes apparent that the personality qualities - emotions, whether we mean maternal instincts shared with all animals, love of one's fellowmen, or love of God, - are regarded as largely dependent upon the condition of the pituitary gland, as is also the ability to intellectualize. Approaching the problem from a different angle, the student of the Eastern wisdom proves the relative correctness of all these inferences. [46]
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