RF Annual Report - 1935 - The Rockefeller Foundation

126 THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION
pretation of behavior, one may quote from the
recent Horsley Memorial Lecture by Sir Walter
Langdon-Brown on the topic "The Integration
of the Endocrine System": "It has long been
common knowledge that emotional states may -.
modify secretion; the tears of sorrow and the dry
mouth of fear are proverbial. In such instances
it is obvious that a nervous impulse has produced
or prevented a chemical process. But it is only
quite recently that we have realised that all
nervous impulses have a chemical mediator between
the neuron and the tissue celt, and indeed between
one neuron and another"
The present program of the division of the
natural sciences of The Rockefeller Foundation
aims to stimulate and assist studies which contribute
directly to, or form the necessary basis
for, an understanding of behavior. Whereas the
division of medical sciences, with its similar aim,
emphasizes studies of the psychical aspects of
behavior, the natural science program emphasizes
studies of the somatic aspects. Although a
rational understanding of the behavior of man
himself forms the underlying purpose of the
program, man is obviously too precious and too
complicated an organism to serve often as the
experimental material. It is clear, for example,
that the human race needs, and needs desperately,
a fuller and more useful knowledge of
© 2003 The Rockefeller Foundation