Humors, Hormones and the Mind: An Approach to the Understanding of Behaviour PDF
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HUMORS, HORMONES AND THE MIND Humors, Hormones and the Mind An Approach to the Understanding of Behaviour Bernard T. Donovan Department of Physiology Institute of Psychiatry De Crespigny Park, London SES BAF M STOCKTON P R E S S © Bernard T. Donovan 1988 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended), or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WClE 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1988 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world Typesetting by Communitype, Leicester British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Donovan, Bernard T. Humors, hormones and the mind : an approach to the understanding of behaviour. 1. Human behavior 2. Hormones I. Title 612' .405 BF121 ISBN 978-0-333-45293-6 ISBN 978-1-349-19025-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-19025-6 Published in the United States and Canada by Stockton Press 15 East 26th Street, New York, NY 10010 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Donovan, Bernard T. Humors, hormones and the mind : an approach to the understanding of behaviour I Bernard T. Donovan. p. em. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-935859-32-4 (Stockton Press) : $60.00 1. Psychoneuroendocrinology. I. Title. [DNLM: 1. Behavior-physiology. 2. Brain-physiology. 3. Hormones-physiology. 4. Psychophysiology. WK 102 D743hal QP356.45.D66 1987 612' .814-dcl9 87-27745 CIP- Contents Preface vii Part 1 Introduction 1 Humours, Humors and Hormones 3 2 The Neural Basis of Humoral Action 23 Part 2 Humors 3 Neurohumors 41 4 Hormonal Humors 64 5 The Master Humors 85 6 Peptide Humors 112 7 Immunohumors 138 Part 3 How the Humors Affect the Mind 8 Senses 149 9 Emotion 158 10 Stress 172 11 Aggression 185 12 Learning and Memory 198 13 Eating and Drinking 211 14 Masculinity 232 15 Femininity 257 16 Intellect and Personality 271 Index 282 Preface Brain science is passing though a revolution, with the progress in recent years being little short of astounding. A major force in the upheaval has been, and still is, the contribution of research on hormones and humors; for the old idea that the brain served as conductor of a hormonal orchestra, with a major gland attached to the base ofthe brain, the pituitary gland, acting as the controlling baton, has given way to a much more dynamic concept, for the brain itself produces many hormonal factors. Almost every bodily function is affected by hormones, from eating, drinking, digestion, emotion, learning, memory, and intellectual endeavour, to muscular action, growth and sexual activity, but coverage in the present work is largely restricted to the chemical control of behaviour, for it is here that progress is of greatest import. The new knowledge is not simply of theoretical significance, but of major practical impact, for in addition to helping us understand ourselves, and the way we behave, it is providing novel tools for the treatment of mental illness, and altering the approach of psychiatrists and psychologists to their patients, as well as that of the social services to their clients. Inevitably, much of the new information appears a little complicated and difficult to comprehend, but its impact upon society and the way we live is such as to merit the present attempt to convey some of the interest and excitement in a non-technical but systematic manner. Both the layman and the professional will find much of interest within these pages, and the material can be approached in several ways. The knowledgeable might prefer to start at the beginning and continue to the end; the tyro may opt to dip into a chaPter on some particular aspect of behaviour and explore from there. It is for this reason that numerous cross-references have been inserted. Whatever the approach, the reader is certain to encounter material of immediate appeal. The fact that the subject matter is of direct concern to the drug-taker, endocrinologist, immunologist, nutritionist, physiologist, psychologist, psychiatrist, and teacher, to name but a few, should not be a deterrent: it is of great moment to us all. This book develops a point of view presented in a more technical way, primarily for psychiatrists, in my Hormones and Human Behaviour (published in 1985). Some matters touched upon lightly here are covered in viii Preface greater depth in that work and to a degree the volumes are complementary. But each stands alone. Readers should note that in places I have deliberately reproduced quota tions from other sources exactly as they originally appeared. This has occasionally led to oddities of grammar, punctuation and spelling. London, 1987 B.T.D. Part 1 Introduction 1 Humours, Humors and Hormones HUMOURS Over the years innumerable attempts have been made to account for the humour or behaviour of a person on the basis of the influence, in one direction or another, of rather few humoral or chemical .f actors. The ancients had no inkling of chemistry, and relied instead upon intuition with a larding of everyday observation. For the Greek physicians and philosophers the body was supposed to be comprised of four basic elements: fire, air, water and earth. In turn, each element had two qualities, with fire being hot and dry, air being hot and moist, water cold and moist, and earth being cold and dry. The qualities of hot, cold, moist and dry were then transformed into the four humors, which were blood (hot and moist), phlegm (cold and moist), yellow bile (hot and dry) and black bile (cold and dry). Inevitably, the theories proved inadequate as knowledge accumulated, but for cen turies it was sincerely believed that to be sanguine was to be the lucky possessor of blood containing an optimal mixture of the all-important humors. Actually, arterial blood was supposed to contain a lot of sanguine which accounted for the bright red and healthy appearance of that fluid. On the other hand, the melancholic suffered from an excess of nasty black bile, while the lethargic suffered from an excess of phlegm. Phlegm was a product of the lungs or brain and could be drained through the nose, as was very evident in many ill people. Delirium was more difficult to explain but was traced to a preponderance of yellow bile. Naturally, particular effort was given to the identification of medicines that might get rid of these excesses by seeking out and eliminating harmful substances by purging them from the body by the induction of vomiting, sweating, salivation, urination or haemorrhage - heroic measures which could have done little to ease the plight of the patient. Despite their seemingly mystic basis these ideas have 4 Humors, Hormones and the Mind proved enduring, with descriptive words such as melancholic, phlegmatic, choleric, bilious and sanguine still remaining in common usage. Although the concept of the four humors appears irrational, the idea may well have been founded upon careful comparisons of the process of blood clotting in the sick and healthy. In 1921, Robin Fahraeus, a Swedish pathologist, published a thesis based upon his research on the sedimentatiop rate of red blood cells in normal individuals and in patients suffering from various diseases. This work led to the clinical test that is in common use. As Borje Cronholm recalled in 1984, Fahraeus showed that observations made on coagulated blood could have provided grounds for the existence of the four humors. In coagulated blood from a patient with an abnormally high sedimentation rate, as in pneumonia, a distinct separation into four compo nents is evident: the liquid serum (the yellow bile, or cholera), the pale coagulum without any red corpuscles (the phlegm), the coagulum contain ing oxygenated red blood cells (the blood in a restricted sense, or haema or sanguis), and the coagulum with poorly oxygenated red blood corpuscles (the black bile or melancholia). Now, in coagulated blood from a healthy man with a much slower sedimentation rate the layer of phlegm is very thin, so that it would have been logical to attribute disease to an excess of phlegm, though it remains less· easy to account for the association of black bile, the melancholia.._ with depressive symptoms. Even today psychologists argue that we are all the result of a blend of four basic personality types: the choleric, who is outgoing, extraverted and unstable; the melancholic, who is an unstable, withdrawn and inward looking (introverted) individual; the sanguine, a well-balanced and stable extravert; and the phlegmatic, the stable introvert. Thus Hans and Michael Eysenck (1985), for example, recently harked back with relish to the description of Immanuel Kant in his Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hin sicht of 1798, who referred to the sanguine person as carefree and full of hope, attributing great importance to whatever he may be dealing with at the moment, but forgetting about it the next, and to the melancholic, who lent great importance to everything that concerned himself, but discovered causes for anxiety everywhere, and was preoccupied with the difficulties of life. The choleric was hot-headed, easily roused but easily calmed; readily annoyed but not harbouring a grudge, full of pride but then suffering most as others refused to fall in with his pretensions. And, finally, the phlegmatic, who was someone with a natural tendency to be moved, neither quickly nor easily, but with persistent pressure, and who warmed up slowly but stayed warm and acted on principle, not by instinct. Objective evidence for the existence of humors affecting behaviour, of substances we now regard as hormones, started to become available with the development of experimental physiology and medicine in the middle of the nineteenth century. The loss of masculinity suffered by the castrated cockerel, and, more important, the reversal of the ensuing changes after
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