I9I4.] CRILE— THE KINETIC SYSTEM. 283 



5. The Thyroid. — In myxedema one of the cardinal symptoms is 

 a persistently subnormal temperature and though prone to infection, 

 subjects of myxedema show but feeble febrile response and readily 

 succumb. This clinical observation is strikingly confirmed by labo- 

 ratory observations; normal rabbits subjected to fear showed a rise 

 in temperature of from one to three degrees while two rabbits whose 

 thyroids had been previously removed and who had then been sub- 

 jected to fright showed much less febrile response. Myxedema sub- 

 jects show a loss of physical and mental energy which is proportional 

 to the lack of thyroid. Deficiency in any of the organs of the kinetic 

 chain causes alike loss of heat, loss of muscular and emotional action, 

 of mental power and of the power of combating infections — the 

 negative evidence thus strongly supports the positive. By accumu- 

 lating all the evidence we believe we are justified in associating the 

 brain, the suprarenals, the thyroid, the muscles and the liver as vital 

 links in the kinetic chain. Other organs play a role undoubtedly, 

 though a minor one. If our conclusions are sound, then in the 

 kinetic system we should find an explanation of many diseases, and 

 having found an explanation, we may find new methods of combat- 

 ing them. 



Kinetic Diseases. 



In the foregoing conclusions we find a simple explanation of 

 certain diseases. When the kinetic system is driven at an over- 

 whelming rate of speed — as by severe physical injury, by intense 

 emotional excitation, by perforation of the intestines, by the pointing 

 of an abcess into new territory, by the sudden onset of an infectious 

 disease, by an overdose of strychnin, by a Marathon race, by a grill- 

 ing fight, by foreign proteins, by anaphylaxis, — the result of these 

 acute overwhelming activations of the kinetic system is clinically 

 designated shock, and according to the cause is called traumatic 

 shock, toxic shock, anaphylactic shock, drug shock, etc. 



The essential pathology of shock is identical whatever the cause. 

 If, however, instead of an intense overwhelming activation, the ki- 

 netic system is continuously or intermittently overstimulated through 

 a considerable period of time, as long as each of the Hnks in the 

 kinetic chain takes the strain equally the result will be excessive 



