o function in a progressively weaker fashion. Until with
the arrival of the gonadal (ovaries' or testes') internal secretion,
its influence is wiped out.

There is a definite degree of thymus activity during everyone's
childhood, unless by its premature involution, precocity displaces
juvenility. Yet even during childhood, there are certain individuals
with excessive thymus action, foreshadowing a continued thymus
predominance throughout life. The "angel child" is the type: regularly
proportioned and perfectly made, like a fine piece of sculpture, with
delicately chiselled features, transparent skin changing color
easily, long silky hair, with an exceptional grace of movement and an
alertness of mind. They seem the embodiment of beauty, but somehow
unfit for the coarse conflicts of life. In English literature several
characters are recognizable as portraits of the type, notably Paul
Dombey, whose nurse recognized that he was not for this world. They
may look the picture of health, but they are more liable than any
other children to be eliminated by tuberculosis, meningitis or even
one of the common diseases of childhood.

It is after puberty, when the thymus should shrink and pass out of
the endocrine concert as a power, that the more complex reactions of
personality emerge when the thymus persists and refuses to or cannot
retire. The persistent thymus always then throws its shadow over the
entire personality. To what extent that shadow spreads depends upon
the strength of the other glands of internal secretion, their ability
to compensate or to stay inhibited. Whether or not the pituitary will
be able to enlarge in its bony cradle seems to be the most important
factor determining these variations. If there is space for it to grow,
at any rate normally, the individual may pass for normal, although
he will have difficulties throughout life he may never understand,
particularly in sexual directions. If the pituitary is limited.
partially or completely, the thymus predominance is more prominent
and fixed, and the abnormalities become obvious, both of person and
conduct.

The anatomic architecture of the latter thymo-centric personality is
fairly typical. The reversion in type of the reproductive organs, the
slender waist, the gracefully formed body, the rounded limbs, the long
chest and the feminine pelvis strike one at the first glance. The
texture of the skin is smooth as a baby's, and sometimes velvety to
the touch.