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Show THE SUPRARENAL GLANDS. The next time you wake with a start in the middle of the night with your hair standing on end, your skin all goosedesh, with those peculiar tingling ting-ling thrills of fear running up and down your spine and all over your body, and you are conscious that your heart is pounding like a steam trip hammer, do not say j ou are "nervous" "nerv-ous" and place all the blame on your "nerves." For. as a matter of fact. ! the condition is quite the reverse and you are suffering from lack of cerebral nerve action, rather than too much. The brain is essentially an inhibitory, a restraining and controlling organ. And exactly in proportion as the brain is developed and intelligently directed and controlled so is fear eliminated and banished l-Yrini'.t in g the brain lo run wild around a circle tends 1 to derange tlie einiiv economy, as we j shall see. Hut returning to the fear I mentioned above. I'ossibiy some nerve impulse beginning in a subconscious mental or dream action traveled from the brain down the pneumognstrie ; nerve, touched off and started into action the primordial nerve oruani::a tion; but the actual active manifesta tions of fear are now known to he due solely to excitation of the sympathetic nervous system. And it is conclusive- : ly demonstrated tba'. excitation of the sympathetic nervous system result.- from a substance manufactured in the . mxlulla, this is to say, in the interior ' of the adrenal glands This substance is known as adrenalin. There are three orgiMts in our bodies which have the epithelial structure ol ; glands, but are without ducts the 1 suprarenal capsules, the thyroid gland 1 and the pituitary body. It is assumed 1 that these organs obtain from the blood certain substances which under-r under-r go alteration in their epithelial cells, " the product of such convers'ons being ' again returned to the blood." ' Since 1S!H. when Jacobi described '' nerves branching from the splanchnics ? (visceral nerves) and Liidl and Drcyer subsequently demonstrated that elec- - trie stimulation of the splanchnics be-1 be-1 low the diaphragm produced in l ho. ad ' renal blood an increased amount of 1 the substance increasing arterial blood 1 pressure, more and more attention has 3 been given to the investigation of the function of the suprarenals. J It has been demonstrated that there is present in normal blood a substance which is constantly secreted by the 1 adrenal bodies and which has a marked - stimulating effect upon the tone of ? the blood vessels and upon the heart ? and perhaps upon the skeletal muscles 1 It is assumed that this internal score- " lion is essential to the full activity of the sympathetic self-governing nervous system, and its failure or diminution 1 will be followed by impairment of the i- functional activity of I lie tissues thus - enervated This substance, epinephyr- 2 in (adrenalin), has been isolated and ? injected inlo animals, the cut, for instance, in-stance, and is found to induce all the t principal emotions characteristic ol - discharges along the sympathetic j nerve paths; that is to say. the pupils r dilate, the stomach and inteslinea are s inhibited, (he heart beats rapidly, the 1 hairs of the back anil the tail stand l erect in short, the cat is "frightened," p if more than the normal quantity of 1 adrenal is introduced into '.he blood stream. The adrenals are also demonstrated to have the power of neui ralizing in some way the poisonous products :1 resulting from muscular work. The - aciive substance, adrenalin, extracted from the medullary pari oi the supra- -1' renal giands litis found many uses in J the hands of the medical profession, ! Among iheso chi I''.y is its use in ' chit king iio.-ihh ed an. lieieerrllages in uiitior op' i a: ions, a;n! in shrinking 'be tissues of the no.-" in h.iy (ever i its actio:: in this lafl-r di."a-" op. t:.--:ke epitsliou o' a r t:l:i t ionsii i ;i between i Jie ductless gland seentioiis. hyper .-'usitive to rves a;.d Hie ac'-plee came ol buy te:er plant poll'ii ii1 t tile1 ti ir. |