146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The importance of the subject in relation to clinical medicine has been 

 well emphasized by Professor L. F. Barker." 



In how far those sudden and violent excitations of the autonomic nervous 

 system which accompany strong emotions are due to the intervention of the 

 glands of internal secretion, and in how far they depend upon direct neural con- 

 duction from the brain, we are as yet but ill-informed. I need only remind you 

 of the vasodilatation of the face in the blush of shame, of the stimulation of the 

 lacrimal glands which yields the tears of sorrow, of the palpitation of the heart 

 in joy, of the stimulation of the sudoriparous glands which precedes the sweat of 

 anxiety, of the stimulation of the vaso-constrictors, the pupil dilators and the 

 pilomotors in the pallor, mydriasis and goose-skin of fright, to illustrate some of 

 these violent autonomic excitations. While we do not yet understand the exact 

 mechanisms of association among the activities of the cerebrum, the endocrine 

 glands and the reciprocally antagonistic autonomic domains and their end-organs, 

 we can begin to see the paths which must be followed in order that more exact 

 knowledge may be gained. 



The balance maintained normally between the two antagonistic systems is 

 one of the most interesting of physiological phenomena. Think, for example, 

 of the rate of the heart beat — how constantly it is maintained at a given level 

 in each individual when the body is at rest; the impulses arriving through the 

 vagal system just balance those arriving through the sympathetic system, so as to 

 maintain a rate of approximately seventy-two beats per minute. And a similar 

 balance is maintained in other autonomic domains (e. g., pupils, bronchial mus- 

 culature, gastric glands, gastro-intestinal muscle, sweat glands, bladder muscle, 

 etc.). 



This equilibrium is all the more remarkable when one considers how fre- 

 quently it is temporarily upset in the exercise of physiological function. The 

 play of the pupils with varying light, the watering of the mouth at the smell 

 of savory food, the response of the heart to exercise and emotion, the flow of 

 gastric juice on adequate stimulation, the opening of the bile duct at the call 

 of the chyme, the transport of the colonic contents through one third of the length 

 of the colon through one vehement contraction every eight hours, the sudden 

 relaxation of the sphincter and contraction of the detrusor of the bladder in 

 micturition, the violence of contractions in the domain of the N. pelvicus in par- 

 turition in the female and in the ejaculation in the male, come to mind at once 

 as examples of sudden physiological overthrow of balance. 



Another set of correlations advanced by the Vienna school is 

 connected with the causation of diabetes. Eppinger, Falta and 

 Eudinger regard the thyroid, pituitary and adrenals (chromaffinic 

 system) as the accelerators or mobilizers of glycosuria, in that all three 

 increase exchange or metabolism of proteins, the adrenals mobilizing 

 carbohydrates and the thyroid increasing fat absorption. The pancreas 

 and the parathyroids, on the other hand, are held to be inhibitors of 

 glycosuria, retarding protein metabolism and restricting the mobiliza- 

 tion of carbohydrates. Diabetes following excision of the pancreas is 

 held to be due to the mobilizing power of the adrenal hormone on the 



2" L. F. Barker, Canadian Med. Assoc. Jour., Montreal, 1913, III. See, also, 

 W. B. Cannon, ' ' The Interrelations of Emotions as Suggested by Eecent Physio- 

 logical Eesearches," Atrt. Jour. Psychol., Worcester, Mass., 1914, XXV., 256-282. 



