114 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 



vaso-motor system as it responds reflexly to the needs of 

 the somatic cells, or to emotions conditioned by adrenalin 

 and other glandular products. But the chief point is that 

 there is no real contradiction in such a view between the 

 cardiac and intestinal vagus action. Both tend to increase 

 the working power of the organ they control. Moreover, 

 if these arguments have any weight, such is assuredly 

 increased by the fact that the phenomena accompanying 

 the therapeutic action of digitalis no longer contradict vagus 

 action, but show that the drug actually assists it to work 

 when normal control breaks down and the degenerate 

 heart is under the influence of the accelerators, or a flurried 

 irregular stimulus of the pace-maker, with concomitant 

 irregular muscle fibre discharges, such as are seen in 

 auricular fibrillation. It is true that pharmacologists assert 

 that the action of digitalis differs from vagus influence. 

 This is only natural since they are apt to bolt their physio- 

 logy whole, as it is given them by specialists in that 

 science. So indeed the physiologist himself, with regard to 

 drug action, leans with too much faith on the pharmacologist. 

 As was once remarked to me by an eminent professor, 

 there is scarcely a drug known to medicine which would 

 not take a lifetime to study properly. Certainly clinicians 

 would agree. Cushny says that the inhibitory action of the 

 vagus tends to render tone less complete, and to produce 

 weaker contractions than digitalis. This is in accordance 

 with orthodox opinion. But the evidence is not convincing. 

 What is of weight is the result of the experiments with this 

 particular cardiac drug. Even if ancient accepted experi- 

 ments, drawn from the text-books or the practice of the 

 physiological laboratories, are repeated, they are of no 

 more importance than the original ones founded, as I have 

 endeavoured to show, on unphysiological lines. To repeat, 



