KINETIC DISEASES 215 



operation, by as far as possible excluding kinetic 

 stimuli, whether of psychic, toxic or dietetic origin. 

 On the same principle may be explained the facts that 

 cardiovascular disease is mitigated by morphia, and 

 that certain forms of opium are beneficial in diabetes. 



There is some clinical evidence that some cases of 

 idiopathic epilepsy, a remarkably strong kinetic activa- 

 tion, may be modified but not cured by weakening the 

 kinetic chain by excision of one adrenal and perhaps 

 of a part of the other adrenal, division of the nerve 

 supply of the thyroid, excision of a part of the thyroid 

 and resection of the sympathetic nerve trunks in the 

 neck. The purpose of this operation is to diminish the 

 manifestation of epilepsy, but in addition one result is 

 an increase of sugar tolerance. If we can at will in- 

 crease sugar tolerance, might not such an operation be 

 of value in the treatment of diabetes? Indeed, on a 

 priori grounds, such an operation should improve any 

 chronic disease in which the use of opium gives tem- 

 porary relief. 



In addition to these facts taken from the medical 

 clinic, we have a remarkable array of data drawn from 

 the larger but no less reliable clinic of life itself, which 

 shows that many of this large group of diseases which 

 we have termed kinetic diseases because they are obvi- 

 ously aggravated, if not produced, by agencies which 

 activate the kinetic system, are not only often modified, 

 but frequently cured, and, in some instances, actually 

 prevented, by circumstances of life, by states of mind, 

 by habits and by forms of treatment which, like anoci 

 association in the surgical clinic, operate by diminish- 

 ing the number and intensity of adequate brain stimuli. 



