nto the
heredity and early environment of the criminal, his education and
occupation, the social and religious influences to which he was
subjected, and the intelligence test quotient. The conditioning of the
vegetative system and the endocrine status of the prisoner, however,
will without a doubt come to occupy the leading positions in any
interpretation of crime in the future.

Introspective observation of pre-criminal states of mind by so-called
normal persons reveals that in many of them there is an impairment of
reason and will power, in others an exaltation amounting almost
to hysteria. What are these but endocrine states of the cells,
experimentally reproducible by increasing or decreasing the influence
of the thyroid, the adrenals, the pituitary? Crimes of passion may be
traced in no small part to disturbances of the thyroid. A psychologic
examiner of a Pittsburgh court, interested in the subject, has found
an enlarged thyroid in over ninety per cent of delinquent girls.
Similarly, crimes of violence may be ascribed to a profound break
in the adrenal equilibrium. Criminal tendencies in women during
menstruation and pregnancy, periods of deep-seated mutation in the
internal glandular system, have long been noted. A kleptomania,
uncontrollable desire to steal, confined to the duration of pregnancy
alone, has been described. We have seen how the thymocentric,
especially if he possesses a small bony case for his pituitary, is
predisposed to crime. A recent study of twenty murderers in the State
of West Virginia showed them all to have a persistent thymus and the
thymocentric constitution. A study of the recidivists, those who
return for second and third offences, in one institution, disclosed
that a large majority had a subnormal temperature and an increased
heart and breathing rate. These are endocrine-controlled functions.
Conduct, normal or abnormal, being the resultant of the conflict of
conscious and subconscious impulses and inhibitions, the internal
secretions as controllers of the susceptibility of the brain cells to
impulses and inhibitions, must be held accountable for a portion at
least of the chemical reactions behind crime.

It is possible, by X-ray treatment of the thymus, to cause it to
shrink to more normal proportions. It is possible, by feeding various
glandular extracts, to correct deficiencies or excesses of their
function, and so to remedy the underlying basis for a criminal career.
Here and