Medicine: Hope For New LIfe

The pituitary gland, a pea-sized object cannily concealed in the middle of the skull, was once believed to be the soul's abiding place. In the 20th century, surgeons have worried less about the soul, but the pituitary's front part was found to produce no fewer than six master hormones,* which control slave hormones in other glands. Clearly, it would be fatal if a surgeon took out so vital a gland. At most, he might operate on a cancerous pituitary, but then he was scrupulously careful to leave some of the gland intact.

Last week Dr. Olof Pearson told a packed audience...

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