SECRETION 322 SECRET SOCIETIES semblance of this crest to a pen behind a clerk's ear, the bird derived its specific Latin and popular English name. SECRETION, in physiology, the proc- ess by which materials are separated from the blood, and from the organs in which they are formed, for the purpose either of serving some ulterior office in the animal economy, or being discharged from the body as excrement. Secretion is one of the natural functions of the liv- ing body, and is as necessary to health as nutrition. Where the secreted mate- rials have some ulterior purpose to serve, they are known as secretions ; where they are discharged from the body, excretions. Most of the secretions seem to consist of substances not pre-existing in the same form in the blood, but requiring special organs and process of elaboration for their formation. Excretions, on the other hand, commonly or chiefly consist of sub- stances existing ready formed in the blood, and are merely extracted there- from. In general, however, the structure of the parts engaged in eliminating ex- cretions is as complex as that of the parts concerned in the formation of secretions. The secretions may be arranged into three sorts: (1) exhalations; (2) follic- ular secretion; and (3) glandular secre- tion. The exhalations take place as well within the body as at the skin or in the mucous membranes, and are thus divided into external and internal. The follicles are divided into mucous and cutaneous, and into simple and compound. In al- most all the points of the skin little open- ings exist which are the orifices of small hollow organs with membranous sides, generally filled with an albuminous and fatty matter. The small organs are called the follicles of the skin. The glands, however, are the principal organs to which the office of secreting is more es- pecially ascribed, and the number of them is considerable. The glandular secretions are of seven different sorts, namely, tears, saliva, bile, pancreatic fluid, urine, se- men, and milk. In botany, in consequence of the action of air and light on the watery contents of the green leaves of plants, the mate- rials within them are subjected to a very active chemical condition, by which vari- ous substances are formed, — as protein matters, gum, sugar, starch, etc., all of which are essentially necessary to the growth of the plant. Besides these are other matters, such as coloring sub- stances, numerous acids, various alka- loids, etc., which, after their production, perform no further active part in the plant, and are hence removed from the young and vitally active parts to be stored up in the older tissues of the plants as secretions, or removed altogether from them as excretions. SECRET SERVICE, UNITED STATES, a bureau connected with the Treasury Department, whose chief and almost sole object is to guard against the counterfeiting of the money of the United States and the detection and punishment of the counterfeiters. It is presided over by a chief, who has under him a number of skilful detectives, who are stationed in various parts of the country or as- signed to special fields of operation on occasions of emergency. SECRET SOCIETIES, organizations that in some form or other have existed in all ages of the world's history. _ In the ancient world many of the more influen- tial religions had their mysteries, the ceremonies connected with which were generally performed in secret and only in the presence of those who had been duly initiated. These inner and more secret groups of priests and initiated worship- ers existed in association with the wor- ship of Mithras in Persia, of Orpheus and Dionysus in Greece, at Eleusis and else- where, or Osiris and Serapis in Egypt, and of the Great Mother (Cybele) in Phrygia. The followers of Pythagoras formed what was in many respects a se- cret religious society, though philosophy and political doctrine took a foremost place in their teachings. Among the Jews there proceeded from out of the Pharisees the puritanical Essenes (Cha- sidim), forerunners of the Jewish Ca- balists, who professed a secret system of theology and philosophy associated with mystic practices, and of Christian Gnos- tics, and formed exclusive sects based on initiation and esoteric teaching. The lin- eal successors of these last were the vari- ous mediaeval sects of Cathari, most of whom invested their teaching and their worship with many features of mystery. In the Roman Catholic Church the office of the Inquisition deserves to be called a secret society, and so does the order of the Jesuits; though in both cases the se- crecy was due to political rather than to strictly religious causes. The Knights Templar toward the close of their history as a distinct order seem in several cases to have lapsed into the practice of secret rites and belief in certain secret doc- trines. The Freemasons and the Odd Fellows are perhaps the best known of the secret societies in the United States that have cultivated social aims. The Rosierucians had their origin in the 17th century, and directed their attention to the discovery of such things as the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, to the exorcism of spirits, and such like pursuits. Specu-
