Chapter XIV 



CONCLUSIONS 



Since the major aspects of the writer's experiments 

 have been discussed in the preceding pages in a more 

 or less topical form, it seems advisable to review and 

 integrate these investigations in such a way as to form 

 a harmonious picture of the experimental findings 

 and the theoretical conclusions deduced therefrom. 



Strictly speaking, the various topics which have 

 been considered are the logical outgrowth of the 

 writer's early investigations concerning the nature of 

 so-called shock in animals. Thirty odd years ago this 

 was considered to be of psychoneurogenic origin. The 

 earliest investigations of the writer indicated that 

 such was not the case, but rather that the train of physi- 

 ological events termed shock are primarily due to the 

 liberation from injured tissue of a toxic entity, first 

 termed shock toxin, and later cytost. 



Initially this concept arose from the following ob- 

 servations. In all cases of shock, regardless of the ap- 

 parent cause, the onset of typical symptoms was ac- 

 companied by a marked stagnation of blood in the 

 splanchnic area of the experimental animals. This 

 was easily observed in animals whose abdomen was 

 open during the course of an experiment, and in other 



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