ibrium between the glands of internal secretion.
A study of war neuroses by the great Italian student of the
endocrines, Pende, confirms this assumption. As emphasized, the
internal secretions are like tuning keys, and tighten or loosen the
strings of the organism-instrument, the nerves. War for the soldier,
or the civilian combatant as well, sets the strings vibrating, and
with them the glands controlled by them. Excessive stimulation or
depression of an endocrine will disturb the whole chain of hormones,
and the vegetative system, and their echoes in the psyche. The nervous
disorders of war that have been lumped as shell shock or war shock may
be looked upon as uncompensated; airings of the endocrine vegetative
mechanism, as dislocations of parts and processes that are reflected
outwardly as ailment or disease.

AN ENDOCRINE NEUROSIS

An exquisite example of an endocrine neurosis, that is a disorder of
nerves and brain dependent upon an upset of the equilibrium between
the internal secretions due to a trying experience, was furnished
recently by the reactions of three naval officers lost in the snow
wilds of Canada through a balloon adventure. The cases aroused a good
deal of interest at the time, and the details were reported by the
newspapers as if they were the episodes of a serial mystery story.

The three officers started out late one fine evening from Rockaway
Air Station in a balloon for a practice trip. Atmospheric conditions
suddenly changed, they became lost in the clouds, and finally landed
somewhere in the Canadian wilderness. The commander of the balloon
crew, Lieut. A., 23 years old, was the youngest of the three; the
oldest, Lieut. B., being 45, and the third man in the thirties, Lieut.
C.

According to the testimony given at the Court of Inquiry held
afterwards, two hours after they abandoned the balloon and started
struggling through the snow, B. became tired and complained of his
fatigue. B.'s fatigue increased, and two days later became so great
that the party had to stop for an hour and build a fire in order to
permit him to rest. However, an hour proved too little: and in another
half hour he was falling and fainting.

Letters written by C. to his wife and gotten hold of by reporters
declared that B. at this juncture passed into a semi-sane state, in
which he accused himself of a number of sins, and volunteered to
commit suicide, so that the others would not be burdened by his
weakness. Als