Walter Bradford Cannon

“ On the same plane with pain and the dominant emotions of fear and anger, as agencies which determine the action of organisms, is the sensation of hunger. It is a sensation so peremptory, so disagreeable, so tormenting, that men have committed crimes in order to assuage it. It has led to cannibalism, even among the civilized. It has resulted in suicide. And it has defeated armies—for the aggressive spirit becomes detached from larger loyalties and turns personal and selfish as hunger pangs increase in vigor and insistence. ”

“ I have heard a football player confess that just before the final game such an access of strength seemed to come to him that he felt able, on the signal, to crouch and with a jump go crashing through any ordinary door. There is intense satisfaction in these moments of supreme elation, when the body is at its acme of accomplishment. ”

“ On the theory that hunger is a manifestation of bodily need, are we to suppose that, in the course of starvation, the body is mysteriously not in need after the third day, and that therefore the sensation of hunger disappears? ”

“ All these reasons for hostility to war imply a thwarting of strong desires in men—desires for family happiness, devotion to beauty and to scholarship, passion for social justice, hopes of lessening poverty and disease. As was pointed out in the previous chapter, the feeling of hostility has no definite object to awaken it. It is roused when there is opposition to what we ardently wish to get. And because war brings conditions which frustrate many kinds of eagerly sought purposes, war has roused in men a hostility against itself. ”

“ What is true of football is true, though perhaps to a less degree, of the racing sports, as running and rowing. Again great multitudes attend the events, the contests are followed closely from beginning to end, and as the goal is approached the cheering and cries for victory gather in volume and intensity as if arranged for a thrilling climax. The whole setting is most highly favorable to the [p. 222] dramatic development of an acme of excitement as the moment for the last desperate effort to win is put forth. ”

“ Thus the very efficiency of a war against war, as well as struggle against other evils that beset civilized society, rests on the preservation and use of aggressive feeling and the instinct to attack. From this point of view the insistence by the militarists that we must accept human nature as we find it, and that the attempt to change it is foolish, seems a more justifiable attitude than that of the pacifists who belittle the fighting qualities and urge that changing them is a relatively simple process. ”

“ War, on the contrary, disciplines character, it sobers men, it teaches them to be brave and patient, it renews a true order of values, and its demand for the supreme sacrifice of life brings forth in thousands an eager response that is the crowning glory of the human spirit. ”

“ The Theory That Hunger is a General Sensation
The conception that hunger arises from a general condition of the body rests in turn on the notion that, as the body uses up material, the blood becomes impoverished. Schiff [5] advocated this notion, and suggested that poverty of the blood in food substance affects the tissues in such manner that they demand a new supply. The nerve cells of the brain share in this general shortage of provisions, and because of internal changes, give rise to the sensation. Thus is hunger explained as an experience dependent on the body as a whole. ”

“ Hunger, in other words, is normally the signal that the stomach is contracted for action; the unpleasantness of hunger leads to eating; eating starts gastric digestion, and abolishes the sensation. Meanwhile the pancreatic and intestinal juices, as well as bile, have been prepared in the duodenum to receive the oncoming chyme. The periodic activity of the alimentary canal in fasting, therefore, is not solely the source of hunger pangs, but is at the same time an exhibition in the digestive organs of readiness for prompt attack on the food swallowed by the hungry animal. ”

“ The sensation of hunger is difficult to describe, but almost everyone from childhood has felt at times that dull ache or gnawing pain referred to the lower mid-chest region and the epigastrium, which may take imperious control of human actions. As Sternberg has pointed out, hunger may be sufficiently insistent to force the taking of food which is so distasteful that it not only fails to rouse appetite, but may even produce nausea. The hungry being gulps his food with a rush. ”

“ During one moment the absence of hunger would imply an abundance of nutriment in the organism, ten seconds later the presence of hunger would imply that the stores had been suddenly reduced, ten seconds later still the absence of hunger would imply a sudden renewal of plenty. Such zig-zag shifts of the general bodily state may not be impossible, but from all that is known of the course of metabolism, such quick changes are highly improbable. The periodicity of hunger, therefore, is further evidence against the theory that the sensation has a general basis in the body. ”

“ No large acquaintance with the character of warfare is necessary to prove that when elemental anger, hate and fear prevail, civilized conventions are abandoned and the most savage instincts determine conduct. Homes are looted and burned, women and children are abominably treated, and many innocents are murdered outright or starved to death. ”

“ We do not “feel sorry because we cry,” as James contended, but we cry because when we are sorry or overjoyed or violently angry or full of tender affection—when any one of these diverse emotional states is present—there are nervous discharges by sympathetic channels to various viscera, including the lachrymal glands. In terror and rage and intense elation, for example, the responses in the viscera seem too uniform to offer a satisfactory means of distinguishing states which, in man at least, are very different in subjective quality. ”

“ Our inquiry thus far has revealed that the adrenin secreted by the adrenal glands in times of stress has all the effects in the body that are produced by injected adrenin. It plays an essential rôle in calling forth stored carbohydrate from the liver, thus flooding the blood with sugar; it helps in distributing the blood to the heart, lungs, central nervous system and limbs, while taking it away [p. 185] from the inhibited organs of the abdomen; it quickly abolishes the effects of muscular fatigue; and it renders the blood more rapidly coagulable. ”

“ For the grim purposes of war the reed and the lute are grotesquely ill-suited; to rouse men to action strident brass and the jarring instruments of percussion are used in full force. The influence of martial music on some persons [p. 228] is so profound as to cause the muscles to tremble and tears to come to the eyes—both indications of the deep stirring of emotional responses in the body. And when deeds of fortitude and fierce exertion are to be performed the effectiveness of such music in rousing the aggressive emotions has long been recognized. ”

“ The high standards of honor and fairness in sport; its unfailing revelation of excellence without distinctions of class, wealth, race or color; the ease with which it becomes an expression of the natural feelings of patriotism; the respect which victory and pluckily borne defeat inspire in competitors and spectators alike; the extension of acquaintance and understanding which follows from friendly and magnanimous rivalry among strong men who come together from the ends of the earth—each of these admirable features of athletic contests between nations might be enlarged upon. ”

“ The Reflex Nature of Bodily Responses in Pain and the Major Emotions, and the Useful Character of Reflexes
The most significant feature of these bodily reactions in pain and in the presence of emotion-provoking objects is that they are of the nature of reflexes—they are not willed movements, indeed they are often distressingly beyond the control of the will. The pattern of the reaction, in these as in other reflexes, is deeply inwrought in the workings of the nervous system, and when the appropriate occasion arises, typical organic responses are evoked through inherent automatisms. ”

“ We have had most reluctantly to abandon a practice to which we attached great importance, and which, under past and gone conditions of fighting, was invaluable in keeping alive the regimental spirit upon which our British troops depended so much.” All war has been transformed by the invention of the far-reaching and fate-dealing rifle and automatic gun, with which an enemy kills, whose face is not even seen. ”

“ War has become too horrible; it is conducted on too stupendous a scale of carnage and expenditure; it destroys too many of the treasured achievements of the race; it interferes too greatly with consecrated efforts to benefit all mankind by discovery and invention; it involves too much suffering among peoples not directly concerned in the struggle; it is too vastly at variance with the methods of fair dealing that have been established between man and man ”

“ It is obvious that extended action of the sympathetic division, abolishing those influences of the cranial division which are favorable to proper digestion and nutrition, might defeat its own ends. Interruption of the nutritional process for the sake of self-preservation through defense or attack can be only temporary; if the interruption were prolonged, there might be serious danger to the vigor of the organism from failure to replenish the exhausted stores. The body does not have to depend on the return of a banished appetite, however, before its need for restoration is attended to. ”

“ The dominant emotions which we have been considering as characteristically expressed in the sympathetic division of the autonomic system are fear and rage. These two emotions are not unlike. As James [5] has indicated, “Fear is a reaction aroused by the same objects that arouse ferocity.... We both fear and wish to kill anything that may kill us; and the question which of the two impulses we shall follow is usually decided by some one of those collateral circumstances of the particular case, to be moved by which is the mark of superior mental natures.” ”

“ War is almost reduced to a mechanical interchange of volleys and salvoes, and to the intermittent fire of rifles and machine guns, with short rushes at the last, in which there is no place for the dignity and grace of the antique battle of the standard. ”

“ In a series of nearly a score of interesting papers, Carlson and his students [38] have greatly amplified our knowledge of the physiology of the “empty” stomach. Not only are there the contractions observed by Washburn and myself, but at times these may fuse into a continuous cramp of the gastric muscle. The characteristic contractions, furthermore, continue after the vagus nerve supply to the stomach has been destroyed, and, therefore, are not dependent on the reception of impulses by way of the cranial autonomic fibres. ”

“ The conditions favorable to proper digestion are wholly abolished when unpleasant feelings such as vexation and worry and anxiety, or great emotions such as anger and fear, are allowed to prevail. This fact, so far as the salivary secretion is concerned, has long been known. The dry mouth of the anxious person called upon to speak in public is a common instance; and the “ordeal of rice,” as employed in India, was a practical utilization of the knowledge that excitement is capable of inhibiting the salivary flow. ”

“ The urgent need in struggle or flight is a generous supply of oxygen to oxidize the metabolites of muscular contraction, and a quick riddance of the resultant carbon-dioxide from the body. The moment vigorous exercise is begun the breathing at once changes so as to bring about a more thorough ventilation of the lungs. And one of the most characteristic reactions of animals in pain and emotional excitement is deep and rapid respiration. ”

“ The sensations of appetite and hunger are so complex and so intimately interrelated that any discussion of either sensation is sure to go astray unless at the start there is clear understanding of the meanings of the terms. The view has been propounded that appetite is the first degree of hunger, the mild and pleasant stage, agreeable in character; and that hunger itself is a more advanced condition, disagreeable and even painful—the unpleasant result of not satisfying the appetite. ”

“ As we have already seen, the phenomena of a great emotional disturbance in an animal indicate that sympathetic impulses dominate the viscera. When, for example, a cat becomes frightened, the pupils dilate, the activities of the stomach and intestines are inhibited, the heart beats rapidly, the hairs of the back and tail stand erect—from one end of the animal to the other there are abundant signs of nervous discharges along sympathetic courses. Do not the adrenal glands share in this widespread subjugation of the viscera to sympathetic control? ”

“ From this evidence we may infer that sympathetic impulses, though causing constriction of the arteries of the abdominal viscera, have no effective influence on those of the pulmonary and intracranial areas and actually increase the blood supply to the heart. Thus the absolutely and immediately essential organs—those the ancients called the “tripod of life”—the heart, the lungs, the brain (as well as its instruments, the skeletal muscles) —are in times of excitement abundantly supplied with blood taken from organs of less importance in critical moments. ”

“ The last of the factors mentioned above—the effect of fatigue on the irritability of the nerve-muscle combination, or on the muscle alone—can [p. 111] be tested by determining variations in the least stimulus capable of causing the slightest contraction, the so-called “threshold stimulus.” As the irritability lessens, the threshold stimulus must necessarily be higher. The height of the threshold is therefore a measure of irritability. How does fatigue affect the irritability of nerve-muscle and muscle? How is the irritability of fatigued structures affected by rest? ”

“ Even when fighting men are held within the rules, the devices for killing and injuring are now made so perfect by devilish ingenuity that by the pulling of a trigger one man can in a few seconds mow down scores of his fellow-creatures and send them writhing to agony or death. ”

“ Quite in harmony with the foregoing argument that sugar and adrenin, which are poured into the blood during emotional excitement, render the organism more efficient in the physical struggle for existence, are the vascular changes wrought by increased adrenin, probably in coöperation with sympathetic innervations. ”

“ Great emotion, such as is accompanied by nervous discharges via the sympathetic division, may also be accompanied by discharges via the sacral fibres. The involuntary voiding of the bladder and lower gut at times of violent mental stress is well known. Veterans of wars testify that just before the beginning of a battle many of the men have to retire temporarily from the firing line. And the power of sights and smells and libidinous thoughts to disturb the regions controlled by the nervi erigentes proves that this part of the autonomic system also has its peculiar affective states. ”

“ Thus, although the taking of food may be set in abeyance at times of great excitement, and the bodily reserves fully mobilized, that phase of the organism’s self-protecting adjustment is limited, and then hunger asserts itself as an agency imperiously demanding restoration of the depleted stores. ”

“ By covering the cat’s mouth and nose with the fingers until a slight distress of breathing is produced, the stomach contractions can be stopped at will. In the cat, therefore, any sign of rage or fear, such as was seen in dogs by Le Conte and by Bickel and Sasaki, was accompanied by a total abolition of the movements of the stomach. Even indications of slight anxiety may be attended by complete absence of the churning waves. ”

“ To increase general arterial pressure two methods were used: the spinal cord was stimulated in the cervical region through platinum electrodes, or the left splanchnic nerves were stimulated after the left adrenal gland had been excluded from the circulation. This was done in order to avoid any influence which adrenal secretion might exert. It is assumed in these experiments that vessels supplying active muscles would be actively dilated, as Kaufmann [2] has shown, and would, therefore, in case of a general increase of blood pressure, deliver a larger volume of blood to the area they supply. ”