SHOCK 19 



While the clinical aspects of shock are of vast im- 

 portance, and in other publications the writer has 

 devoted considerable attention to them, we shall here 

 consider shock merely as an interesting physiological 

 state which may be produced, as we shall show, in 

 experimental animals. We shall utilize the shock syn- 

 drome merely as an indication of a definite physiologi- 

 cal state which may be induced at will in a living 

 animal. 



Because, as has been shown above, this state may be 

 elicited by a variety of means which obviously by their 

 very nature have little in common, it appears highly 

 probable that each of them initiates a common series 

 of events which lead ultimately to the same physio- 

 logical state. Apparently the simplest type of shock 

 is the postural shock, which may be elicited in the 

 intact animal as previously mentioned. The induction 

 of shock by this means is especially interesting be- 

 cause it involves neither the introduction of any sub- 

 stance into the animal, nor any manipulation tending 

 to injure its tissues. In this instance, the only ab- 

 normality involved is that of suspending an animal 

 in an abnormal position such that its blood under the 

 influence of gravity accumulates in the splanchnic 

 area. 



From this simple experiment we may infer that in 

 all cases of shock, however induced, the physiological 

 changes observed are in great part due to engorge- 

 ment of the splanchnic vessels. That this does actually 

 occur has been demonstrated in many experiments, 

 performed by the writer and by others. 



The fact that animals may be thrown into shock by 

 traumatic injuries, burns, and the injection of various 



