Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage : $b an account of recent researches into the function of emotional excitementCannon, Walter B. (Walter Bradford)
Science
Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage : $b an account of recent researches into the function of emotional excitement
Cannon, Walter B. (Walter Bradford)
Emotions; Mental health; Mind and body
The discovery that during strong emotion adrenal secretion is
increased, and the fact that injection of adrenin gives rise to
glycosuria, suggested that glycosuria might be called forth by
emotional excitement, and then that even without the painful element
of Böhm and Hoffmann’s experiments, sugar might be found in the
urine. The testing of this possibility was undertaken by A. T.
Shohl, W. S. Wright and myself in 1911.
Our first procedure was a repetition of Böhm and Hoffmann’s
experiments, freed from the factor of pain. The animals (cats) were
bound to a comfortable holder, which left the head unfastened. This
holder I had used hundreds of times in X-ray studies of digestion,
with many different animals, without causing any signs of even so
much as uneasiness. Just as in observations on the movements of the
alimentary canal, however, so here, the animals reacted differently
to the experience of being confined. Young males usually became quite
frantic, and with eyes wide, pupils dilated, pulse accelerated,
hairs of the tail more or less erect, they struggled, snarling and
growling, to free themselves. Females, on the contrary, especially
if elderly, were as a rule much more calm, and resignedly accepted
the novel situation.
According to differences in reaction the animals were left in the
holder for periods varying in length from thirty minutes to five
hours. In order to insure prompt urination, considerable quantities
of water were given by stomach tube at the beginning of the
experiment and in some cases again later. Arrangements were made for
draining the urine promptly, when the animal was on the holder or
when afterwards in a metal metabolism cage, into a glass receiver
containing a few drops of chloroform to prevent fermentation. The
diet in all cases consisted of customary raw meat and milk. In every
instance the urine was proved free from sugar before the animal
was excited.
In our series of observations twelve cats were used, and in every
one a well-marked glycosuria was developed. The shortest periods
of confinement to the holder which were effective were thirty and
forty minutes; the longest we employed, five hours. The average
time required to bring about a glycosuria was less than an hour
and a half; the average in seven of the twelve cases was less than
forty minutes. In all cases no sugar was found in the urine passed
on the day after the excitement.
The promptness with which the glycosuria developed was directly
related to the emotional state of the animal. Sugar was found early
in animals which early showed signs of being frightened or in a
rage, and much later in animals which took the experience more
calmly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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