10/27/63 (Sunday) HOUSTON POST article:
THE PUZZLING PINEAL
WASHINGTON - It's about the size of a pea. It sits smack
between both halves of the brain. It has baffled scientists
for centuries, and now it's back in the research spotlight.
This enigmatic prima donna is the pineal gland - a tiny organ
Descartes, the philosopher, mystically called "the seat of
the soul."
The shroud of mystery that has covered the pineal gland for
so long is being lifted. The pineal is begging to be looked
on now as a potent biochemical machine that seems to regulate
the sex gland activity of males and females.
"It is, at least, now very certain, says Dr. Johannes A.
Kappers of the Netherlands Central Institute for Brain
Research, "that the mammalian pineal body, far from being a
mere non-functional relic, is a veritable factory working at
a high metabolic rate and producing a number of compounds of
high functional importance."
LIKE THE APPENDIX, the pineal was thought to be a vestige of
man's evolutionary past. But this explanation didn't satisfy
too many. The problem persisted: Something sitting in the
middle and at the top of such and important organ as the
brain just had to be important. The questions was, for what?
Adding to the mystery is the pineal's reputation as a "third
eye" in some cold-blooded animals such as lizards and the
eel-like lamprey. It has light-receptive structures similar
to those of the retina of the eye, and while the pineal in
these animals probably doesn't enable them to see, it does
seem to help the animals adapt their bodily activity to
light and darkness.
The pineal in these animals is impregnated with nerve endings
directly connected to the brain. But in animals higher up
the evolutionary ladder the pineal seems to have changed
from an organ of cerebral nerve fibers to a hormone-secreting
gland whose nerves originate from centers high in the neck.
"IT IS MOST intriguing that this gland is part of the brain
and yet is not innervated by the brain," says Dr. Kappers.
Instead, running through the gland are some of the so-called
autonomic nerves. This nerve system, acting like a
switchboard, controls such involuntary biological actions as
food digestion, heartbeat, eye blinking and sexual cycles.
Pineal investigators in this country and abroad are giving
particular attention to the substance melatonin, produced
exclusively in the pineal. In lower animals melatonin seems
to influence skin pigmentation. But in mammals it seems to
have a far different role.
According to Dr. Kappers, it apparently influences the part
of the brain whose hormones regulate the growth and activity
of the sex glands. This part of the brain is called the
anterior pituitary gland.
MELATONIN given in high doses to young male rats suppresses
the development of their semen reservoirs and retards body
growth. Remove the melatonin-producing pineal and their sex
glands swell.
These finding are corroborated by clinical findings
which show that male humans whose pineals were completely
destroyed by cancer developed mature gonads early in life.
In female rats, says Dr. Kapper, biochemical activity in
the pineal is lowest around ovulation and highest during
the period prior to the production of eggs. This is
the so-called diestrous period, which corresponds to the
menstrual period in humans. Highest pineal activity thus
coincides with the sterile period in the females.
Researcher at the National Institute of Health have given
melatonin extracts to rats and have decreased the length of
their fertile period. The same researchers have evidence
that light may influence pineal activity in mammals. They
showed that the pineals produced lesser amounts of melatonin
under prolonged bright light.
THERE ARE stories out of Sweden which if true would extend
the "third eye" effect to human beings. These reports say
that the menstrual cycle of women becomes disrupted during
the constant light of summer.
The thinking among many pineal researchers, says Dr. Kappers,
is that the pineal and the anterior pituitary co-operate in
some way to regulate the sexual cycle of females and sexual
development in both sexes.
The great German biochemist Otto Warburg prophetically called
the pineal the chastity organ because of the depressive
action on sexual growth. Other scientists are saying that
its effects are more than just sexual, that the pineal also
controls fluid balance in the body. The complete facts
remain to be learned.
Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993, 1994, 1995 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation