INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 101 



altogether. It may be remarked, by the way, that in 

 such a case energy would be stored in the boilers if the fires 

 were not drawn or neglected. Such a storage of energy 

 may be seen during temporary slowing of a physiological 

 process, such as at first follows on vagal stimulation of the 

 intestine. If the social shock is not too great, some- 

 thing of the same result follows. If the work in hand is 

 very necessary, it is probably returned to with greater 

 vigour after the pause. Or it is diverted to functions 

 still more necessary in the new circumstances. But when 

 such a shock is very great, it is not followed by physio- 

 logical renewed action, nor is it diverted. Action is entirely 

 "inhibited," and energy is wasted. How is that energy 

 wasted ? Energy must do work. What then is done ? 

 It was said by a great physician that unity was health, and 

 separation disease. He spoke truly, for with separation 

 in any organism there is waste of energy. Nothing gets 

 done. In a social organism there follows on great shock a 

 degree of disintegration, with concomitant anger, argument, 

 recrimination, so that energy is wasted in mere social heat 

 instead of used in combined directed labour. Shock, then, 

 is plainly a disruptive phenomenon, whether seen in a 

 social or animal unit. In the animal no organ works well 

 and none works with another. Secretions, hormones, cata- 

 lysts, and the whole machinery of life are altered. The 

 nervous system ceases to function rightly ; tone, nervous 

 or muscular, is lowered, the blood accumulates in the 

 splanchic area, the veins lose their serum. Instead of real 

 symbiosis there is a dead indifference — if the psychological 

 phrase may be allowed : the fundamental hostility at the 

 bottom of symbiosis may cease its powerful action. It is 

 almost as if in a wrecked ship all hands broke into the 

 spirit room, for in the shocked organism excretion is inter- 



