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Finally, even resistance wears out. Then the system reaches the stage of exhaustion. This was what Dr. Selye had found in his rats in 1936, shown by enlarged and overactive adrenals, wasted thymus and bleeding ulcers. But exhaustion, the last phase, may produce many other "diseases of adaptation," notably some types of high blood pressure, several kidney diseases, rheumatoid and gouty arthritis.
"Finger Exercises." Long before Hench and Kendall showed the near-miraculous power of ACTH and cortisone to reverse the course of rheumatoid arthritis (TIME, May 2, 1949), Dr. Selye had outlined the theory into which their facts fitted so neatly. He has become the world's outstanding expert on the endocrine glands—though many dispute some aspects of his theories and some question his methods.
Lean, lithe Dr. Selye has a seemingly inexhaustible fund of energy. His six-volume Encyclopedia of Endocrinology, which took 15 years to compile, he dismisses as "finger exercises." To date, little of his theory has been translated into the practice of healing. But he believes that a "whole new branch of medicine is opening up" and intends to devote his life to "this limitless field." He has hopes that specialists in stress will be able to catch up with—and eventually get ahead of—the stresses of civilization.