100 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 



of damaged muscle products, and the loss of blood fluid 

 through the walls of the veins and arteries, are certainly, 

 as it seems, the principal phenomena of the drama ; but 

 since all physiological phenomena can only be conceived 

 as verging gradually into pathological forms, and as we 

 cannot understand pathology, except as divergence from 

 useful function or structure, it inevitably follows that 

 stimulation itself can be so accentuated that it becomes, 

 firstly, excessive, secondly, abnormal, and at last crosses 

 the vague border-line and becomes pathological. So, from 

 the psychological, or complex cerebral point of view, we 

 see the varying results of mild and severe surprise, mere 

 fright, or excessive terror exciting more and more violent 

 motor reactions or producing collapse, paralysis of all 

 effort, total unconsciousness, or even death. There is 

 therefore no need whatever to confine the use of the word 

 shock to extreme phenomena. Anything which interrupts 

 normal function, whether by vaso-motor means, by the 

 excitation of some glands, or by producing synaptic 

 block, or its exact opposite, may be ranked under its 

 heading. 



In accordance with what is laid down elsewhere, some- 

 thing more may be learnt of these phenomena if any 

 mechanical, biological, or social analogies can be discovered. 

 Incidentally such an inquiry should throw some light, 

 however dim, upon inhibition itself. When a social 

 " shock," such as a great national calamity, is experienced, 

 what are the phenomena observed ? The outstanding fact 

 is that every one's attention is diverted from his task, 

 and that for a time, longer or shorter according to circum- 

 stances, work ceases, or is greatly slackened. In certain 

 factories, for instance, in which the energy used is 

 supplied by machinery, the engineer might even stop it 



