Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage : an account of recent researches into the function of emotional excitement / by Walter B. Cannon.

  • Cannon, Walter B. (Walter Bradford), 1871-1945.
Date:
1929
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage : an account of recent researches into the function of emotional excitement / by Walter B. Cannon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    They carry impulses to arteries and arterioles of the skin, the abdominal viscera, and other parts, keeping the smooth muscles of the vessel walls in a state of slight contraction or tone, and thus serving to main¬ tain an arterial pressure sufficiently high to meet sud¬ den demands in any special region; or, in times of spe¬ cial discharge of impulses, increasing the tone and thus raising the arterial pressure. They are distributed ex¬ tensively to the smooth muscle attached to the hairs; and when they cause this muscle to contract, the hairs are erected. They go to sweat glands, and evoke the outpouring of sweat. These fibers pass also to the en¬ tire length of the gastro-intestinal canal. And the in¬ hibition of digestive activity which, as we have learned, occurs in pain and emotional states, is due to impulses which are conducted outward by the splanchnic nerves —the preganglionic fibers that reach to the great gan¬ glia in the upper abdomen (see Fig. 1)—and thence are spread by postganglionic fibers all along the gut.3 They innervate likewise the genito-urinary tracts, caus¬ ing contraction of the smooth muscle of the internal genital organs, and usually relaxation of the bladder. Finally they affect the liver, releasing the storage of material there in a manner which may be of great serv¬ ice to the body in time of need. The extensiveness of the distribution of the fibers of the sympathetic di¬ vision is one of its most prominent characteristics. Another typical feature of the sympathetic division is an arrangement of neurones for diffuse discharge of the nerve impulses. As shown diagrammatically in