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Working with the gratuitous assumption that there are 24 functions performed in the human body by 8 glands, the authors by
permutations and combinations find that there are over one and a half billion "possible primary and secondary effects of these glandular reactions"—and are ready to explain anything. The special theory offered without any proof is that the fevers of childhood, particularly mumps, cause damage to the ductless glands which results indiscriminately in obesity, delinquencies, dementia præcox (which the author or authors fail to diagnose), ambitiousness, inhibitions, homicidal acts, etc.
The book abounds in incomprehensible absurdities: "Cæsar was blissfully ignorant of such things as hypophyses and as were most of his biographers. All of them were oblivious to such a thing as a pituitary intrusion or influence on his conduct. Similarly it might be said that King Richard of the Lion Heart had a hard working pituitary gland which is a much better asset in a man of his adventurous spirit than a heart, leonine or other; or that Henry VIII had a copious supply of thyroxine, or that Napoleon, despite his stunted figure, was a victim of gigantism and a syndrome involvement."—"Recognition of obesity as a menace would do more than anything else to check the increasing frequency of diabetes." "One must say, 'I am my glands', or, 'My glands—that is I'. The evidence has already gone beyond cogito, ergo sum."
The book is liberally illustrated with synthetic looking photographs which accord well with the completely unreliable and quasiscientific exposition.