THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 175 



tion. "The man in acute shock or exhaustion," 

 writes Crile, "is able to see danger, but lacks the 

 normal muscular power to escape from it ; his tem- 

 perature may be subnormal but he lacks the nor- 

 mal power to create heat ; he understands words but 

 lacks the normal power of response." He cannot 

 transform potential into kinetic energy. Herein 

 lies the key to the situation. We also see why Crile 

 talks of the "kinetic theory of shock." 



Let us dwell on this "kinetic theory" for a min- 

 ute. Various stimuli arouse various associations; 

 the latter may be of the nod or injurious type, or 

 the bene or beneficial type. "All of life is made up 

 of bene- and noci-associations, and the constant 

 effort of the race and the individual is to increase 

 the former and decrease the latter, to develop an 

 environment which shall be as free as possible from 

 noci-associations, to reach a state of anoci-associa- 

 tion" Anoci-associaMon is the title given to one 

 of Dr. Crile' s very suggestive books. In it he shows 

 how the percentage of successful surgical cases 

 may be increased by a treatment which applies the 

 principles of anoci-association before, during and 

 after the operation. 



"The difference between normal processes and 

 shock is that of intensity, not of kind. From these 

 premises it becomes obvious that the exclusion of 

 both traumatic and emotional stimuli will wholly 

 prevent the shock of surgical operations." To ac- 



