Chapter IV 

 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF CYTOST ACTION 



It will be remembered that our purpose in intro- 

 ducing the subject of shock was not to present an 

 exhaustive account of the various theories and their 

 relation to surgical practice, but rather to present evi- 

 dence of the physiological relations between various 

 cells. We shall not therefore offer an extensive re- 

 view of this interesting subject, but shall limit the 

 following to the author's own experiments. The 

 reader desirous of pursuing further the clinical as- 

 pects of the subject is referred to the reviews of 

 Cannon (1923), MacLeod ( 1930), and Turck (1922, 

 1929). 



In previous chapters, experiments have been pre- 

 sented which show the primary cause of shock to be 

 the liberation of cytost from injured tissue cells. So 

 far, however, the discussion has been restricted to the 

 evidence concerning the release of cytost and the ter- 

 minal results of its action. We may now briefly con- 

 sider the manner in which the released cytost affects 

 the animal as a whole — that is, the physiological 

 changes which ultimately lead to a state of shock. 



At the time the author began his investigation it 

 was generally held that shock was of purely nervous 



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