102 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 



fered with, and there is no cell unpoisoned, unintoxicated. 

 Such effects of wasted, or undirected, energy may be seen in 

 special cases to which the word shock cannot be employed. 

 In the failing heart auricular fibrillation is the untimed 

 contractions of disorganized fibres. It is the same with 

 cardiac flutter. In a racing boat , when exhaustion overtakes 

 the crew, they do not pull together. Unable any longer to 

 receive the rhythmic stimulus of stroke, each man's 

 reaction time or personal equation masters him. And 

 each man's differs. The boat slows and, perhaps, finally 

 stops. " The crew went to pieces." It is so with utter 

 exhaustion. It is so in shock. And undoubtedly the 

 liability to such complete disruption increases as the 

 organism becomes higher, and the degree of interdepen- 

 dence of the organs increases. In the most developed 

 nervous types the heart seems the first organ to feel shock 

 of any kind. Something or another has " gone to pieces " ; 

 some function has been interrupted, whether by a disin- 

 tegrative process in cells leading to an interruption of revers- 

 ible reactions of colloids, or by some other failure. The 

 processes by which energy is stored and released in 

 muscle are as obscure as they are remarkable, and it is 

 possible that cardiac shock may be found at last to be the 

 result of an abnormal colloidal process depending upon an 

 excessive " trigger action " of the cardiac vagus. 



For many reasons it seems impossible to accept un- 

 reservedly the physiological doctrine that stimulation of a 

 nerve is but "trigger action" to the muscle it sets going, 

 and that no more energy passes over from the end-plate 

 than an amount so small as not to be measurable. If some 

 of the conclusions as to nervous action were not called 

 in question by other accepted, or partially accepted, views, 

 it might seem hazardous to make such an assertion. 



