Shock (physiology)

“ An external shock causes "a functional disturbance of the delicate mechanism of the psychic centers shown in 1, faulty distribution of motor impulses, 2, hypo-innervation, 3, hyper-innervation, causing tremors, tonic and clonic spasms, etc., instead of single muscle actions." ”

“ A shock acts on an explosive body, the body explodes: the shock is considered the cause. An induction shock acts on a muscle, the muscle contracts; the induction shock is looked upon as the cause of the muscle contraction. To regard only the last added condition as being of especial importance to the taking place and the explanation for a process is, however, a standpoint which could satisfy only the most superficial of observers. ”

“ The shock remaining in the ear and brain, after the sound of thunder, must pass through the same circles, and operate in the same way as during the actual sound. We can have no reason for believing that, in this self-sustaining condition, the impression changes its seat, or passes into some new circles that have the special property of retaining it. Every part actuated after the shock must have been actuated by the shock, only more powerfully. ”

“ Every thing is so arranged that, at the instant the current is closed, a shock is produced either directly in the muscle, or in a given point of a nerve which is isolated for a length of about an inch, and still adheres by one end to the muscle which it is to stimulate. ”

“ Again, the mechanical actions which produce heat—friction, and the collision of bodies—must from the nature of the case produce a shock, that is, an internal motion of particles, which indeed, we find, is often so violent as to break them permanently asunder. ”

“ At the very most, we feel a little prick at the point of communication. But with the help of powerful apparatus at the disposal of science, the electric shock becomes painful and can be dangerous, or even mortal. When one is struck by a rather strong spark, one feels, particularly in the joints, a sudden shock that makes one tremble and feel weak in the knees. With a still stronger spark, the whole body is seized with a sudden shaking so violent that the joints seem to be severed and one is knocked down by the stroke. ”

“ In the same way as the discharge from an excited tube occasions a commotion in the human body, so the shock produced by the discharge between the cloud and many miles in compass of solid earth, must be an earthquake, and the snap from the contact the noise attending it. ”

“ I may give one other experiment having the same object and tendency. Employing single induction shocks of slightly more than minimal intensity, and throwing them in at twice the rate that was required to produce a strong response to every shock, I found that midway between every two strong responses there was a weak response. In other words, a stimulus of uniform intensity gives rise alternately to a strong and to a weak contraction, as shown in the appended tracing (Fig. 27) . ”

“ A terrific force seemed to crash into me, my lungs filled with smoke, and somewhere in my consciousness I seemed to hear a deafening explosion. Then I seemed to feel myself bouncing and sliding over the ground, only to stop with a grinding shock. ”

“ If a mere instantaneous impression can produce effects like these, such an impression might of course be followed by consequences less fatal or formidable, but yet serious in their nature. If here and there a person is killed, as if by lightning, by a sudden startling sight or sound, there must be more numerous cases in which a terrible shock is produced by similar apparently insignificant causes,—a shock which falls short of overthrowing the reason and does not destroy life, yet leaves a lasting effect upon the subject of it. ”

“ When a man meets with a severe injury of any kind, a train of symptoms follow which are collectively known by the name of shock. A striking pallor takes the place of the natural color, the skin becomes covered with a clammy moisture, the eye loses its natural luster, and the extremities become deadly cold, and while the ear may detect the fluttering action of the heart, the pulse at the wrist is often quite imperceptible. ”

“ They will be faint, depressed, and cold; the pulse will be weak and difficult to count and the breathing shallow, the face pale and pinched and the expression alarmed. Sometimes this condition of shock is so severe that it ends in death, even when the accident itself has been but slight. The degree of shock depends very much upon the temperament of the sufferers, being much greater in those of a weak and timid disposition. ”

“ A man is stunned by a blow with a stick on the head. He becomes unconscious. Another man gets a harder blow on the head from a bigger stick, and it kills him. Does he become unconscious, too? If so, when does he come to his consciousness? The man who has had a slight or moderate blow comes to himself when the immediate shock passes off and the organs begin to work again, or when a bit of the skull is pried up, if that happens to be broken. Suppose the blow is hard enough to spoil the brain and stop the play of the organs, what happens them? ”

“ The effects of the shock were very particular on some persons. A lady in the bottom house on the east side, who had left the room which looks over the river, to avoid the lightning, and sat near a window which looks directly up the street towards the north, fell from her chair; but her surprize was so great that she cannot say whether she was thrown down by the concussion of the air, or fell by the fright. She says, she felt the lightning on her arm, and had a very odd sensation like what she supposes people feel by the electrical shock ”

“ Not only can the nervous stimulus be developed by an electric shock, but the strength of the stimulus is within certain limits proportional to the strength of the shock which produces it. Again, not only is it found that an electrical shock can develop a nervous stimulus, but conversely a nervous stimulus develops electrical energy. ”

“ When the kinetic system is driven at an overwhelming rate of speed,— as by severe physical injury, by intense emotional excitation, by perforation of the intestines, by the pointing of an abscess into new territory, by the sudden onset of an infectious disease, by an overdose of strychnin, by a Marathon race, by a grilling fight, by foreign proteins, by anaphylaxis,—the result of these acute overwhelming activations of the kinetic system is clinically designated shock, and according to the cause is called traumatic shock, toxic shock, anaphylactic shock, drug shock, etc. ”

“ While the current is passing through the body, although it may burn and cause tingling and other unpleasant symptoms, there is no proper shock. In other words, an electric shock is caused only by a change in the amount of electricity passing through the body or a portion thereof. ”

“ The newness lay in the proper combination of old discoveries. Electric shock was one ingredient, a prolonged drastic application of it during the recreation of a situation that the victim had a weakness for. ”

“ The shock to the nerves (or convulsion rather) is occasion'd by the sudden passing of the fire through the body in its way from the top to the bottom of the bottle. The fire takes the shortest course, as Mr Watson justly observes: But it does not appear, from experiment, that, in order for a person to be shocked, a communication with the floor is necessary; for he that holds the bottle with one hand, and touches the wire with the other, will be shock'd as much, though his shoes be dry, or even standing on wax, as otherwise. ”

“ The chief importance of the primary shock lies in the fact that it may initiate the conditions which predispose to secondary shock, so that under certain circumstances the one may become merged in the other. ”

“ This brings me to the consideration of another point, namely, that violent stimulation of a centre exhausts the nerve-force, not of that centre only, but of the whole nervous system. A terrible shock may so use up the nerve-force that the individual falls senseless, or, short of this, he may yet be so paralyzed with fear or grief that he loses all muscular power, or he may be so violently moved that the great exertions which he makes only last for a short time. ”

“ The danger of electric shocks depends upon the amount of current passing through the body, the kind of contact, and the insulation of the body at the time. Moisture of the body or clothes will increase the effects of the shock. ”

“ Organic States that Influence Behavior
Beginning at the lowest of our three levels, let us observe not even the simplest animal, but a single muscle. If we give a muscle electric shocks as stimuli, it responds to each shock by contracting. To a weak stimulus, the response is weak; {73} to a strong stimulus, strong. But now let us apply a long series of equal shocks of moderate intensity, one shock every two seconds. Then we shall get from the muscle what is called a "fatigue curve", the response growing weaker and weaker, in spite of the continued equality of the stimuli. ”

“ Suppose a barrel of powder exploded in a cavity situated a hundred metres underground. At the surface we would hear a rumbling explosion, and feel a vertical shock within a limited space, and an undulatory thrill over a wider circle. The phenomenon will be much like that of an earthquake, except that the essential element of repetition will be wanting; for all will be over with the first shock. But, in the majority of earthquakes, the shocks come in succession, as if the cause of them were a regenerating one. ”

“ There are a few who sadly collapse before the onslaught of adverse circumstances, who give way without a fight to nervous prostration, and who are subject at times to wild spasms of uncontrolable trembling, finally going down the line with a form of shell-shock altogether distinct to shock from violent concussion. ”

“ A disturbance reaching the end of the chain is betrayed only by the last ball, which is free, and expends in oscillations the shock that is transmitted to it. Equally well known is the process of placing in contact with the vibrating body, plate, or membrane a light substance—sand or cork—the oscillations of which reveal a vibration which our eyes can not discover on the trembling body. In the same way every disturbance traverses the indifferent mass of the animal, and the otolith free in the otocyst, collects it, and announces the slightest shocks to the nervous tissue on which it reposes. ”

“ The external shock is a stimulus; the answer of the organism is the response. If we can find out the relation between this stimulus and the response, we shall be able to determine the vitality of the plant at that moment. In an excitable condition, the feeblest stimulus will evoke an extraordinarily large response: in a depressed state, even a strong stimulus evokes only a feeble response; and lastly, when [Pg_086] death has overcome life, there is an abrupt end of the power to answer at all. ”

“ A strong unexpected impression made through the eyes, as by a flash of lightning, similarly gives rise to a start or shock; and though the feeling so named seems, like the electric shock, to have the body at large for its seat, and may therefore be regarded as the correlative rather of the efferent than of the afferent disturbance, yet on remembering the mental change that results from the instantaneous transit of an object across the field of vision, I think it may be perceived that the feeling accompanying the efferent disturbance is itself reduced very nearly to the same form. ”

“ When a person receives a severe electric shock, the symptoms are usually as follows: In the first place there may be little or nothing except a burn or burns, though usually there is some sensation at the moment of the shock. This may be a simple dizziness, and is often accompanied by the sensation of a brilliant flash of light before the eyes, and sometimes by a sense of impending danger. Usually, however, there is a loss of consciousness more or less complete and more or less lasting according to the severity of the shock and the character and course of the current. ”

“ This is the reason why a very heavy and sudden shock to the nervous system does not pain, but kills outright at once; while one with which the system can, at any rate, try to familiarise itself is exceedingly painful. ”

“ The reason is that the body of the man falls a small fraction of a second before his internal organs, and these consequently seem to rise up in his abdomen.
"Here in the car," continued our hero, "as my velocity increases every instant, I must feel the same kind of a shock continuously when I am upright in the air; but when, on the contrary, I turn head downward, the shocks will be in the direction of my feet, and will therefore tend to send the blood slowly away from my head. ”

“ The flash of light, together with the explosion between the two opposite sides of a charged electric, is generally called the electric shock, on account of the disagreeable sensation it gives any animal whose body is made use of to form the communication been them. ”

“ Effectiveness of stimulus dependent on rapidity also. In order that successive stimuli may be equally effective another point has to be borne in mind. In all cases of stimulation of living tissue it is found that the effectiveness of a stimulus to arouse response depends on the rapidity of the onset of the disturbance. It is thus found that the stimulus of the ‘break’ induction shock, on a muscle for example, is more effective, by reason of its greater rapidity, than the ‘make’ shock. ”