Excerpt from The Endocrine Organs: An Introduction to the Study of Internal Secretion This book is founded upon a course of lectures (Lane Medical Lectures) delivered at Stanford University, California, in the summer of 1913. The lectures were issued in the following year amongst the publications of the University, but in an abbreviated form and without illustrations. It also happened that the proofs, which had been sent for correction, failed to reach me; so that the work as it appeared contained an unusual number of incidental errors. On these and other grounds, I have thought it desirable, with the concurrence of the University authorities, to publish the substance of the lectures in a revised form with the addition of the tracings and photographs which were used to illustrate them: thus both enabling the subject to be brought up to date and affording the opportunity of presenting it to a wider audience. The time at my disposal for the lectures precluded anything more than a passing mention of some of the many workers who have contributed to our knowledge of this, the newest, development of physiology; and in republishing, it has not been deemed desirable unduly to extend the references to literature, seeing that they are already to be found in such standard works as Biedl's Innere Sekretion, in which the bibliography occupies more than 250 large octavo pages, and Swale Vincent's Internal Secretions and the Ductless Glands, where they run to over 2000 titles. Since the appearance of those works much new matter has been added; and more than one long list of literature has appeared in monographs dealing with special internally secreting organs. It is to publications of a comprehensive character such as these that the scientific worker will turn for detailed information. The aim of this little book is less ambitious: it is designed to supply a concise account of our present knowledge for the benefit of students and practitioners who may be desirous of obtaining more information regarding the internal secretions than is afforded by the ordinary text-books of physiology, but have not the time or opportunity to peruse extensive monographs or consult original articles. For a concise history of the subject, as well as a critical examination of the main facts on which the doctrine of internal secretion is based, the small but masterly compendium Les secretions internes, by E. Gley, cannot be too warmly recommended. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.