Physiologist OFFICERS President Publication for Physiologists and Physiology Francis J
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE AMERICAN PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY Founded in 1887 for the purpose of promoting the increase of The physiological knowledge and its utilization. Physiologist OFFICERS President Publication for Physiologists and Physiology Francis J. Haddy, Uniformed Services Univ. of Hlth. Sci., OK E. Reynolds, Editor Bethesda, MD President-Elect Walter C. Randall, Loyola Univ., Maywood, IL Volume 24, No. 5, October 1981 Past President TABLE OF CONTENTS Earl H. Wood, Mayo Med. Sch., Rochester, MN Council Francis J. Haddy, Walter C. Randall, Earl H. Wood, Leon Farhi, Paul C. Johnson, Jack L. Kostyo, John B. West HISTORICAL ARTICLES Signs of Anxiety, Rage, or Distress Executive Secretary-Treasurer .. .Horace Davenport. ........................... 1 Orr E. Reynolds, 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland 20814 New Technology for a New Century: Walter B. Cannon and the Invisible Rays. .A. Clifford Barger. ......... 6 SUSTAINING MEMBERS SOCIETY AFFAIRS Honors and Awards. ................................ 14 Abbott Laboratories Merrell Res. Ctr., Div. of Symposium: Career Opportunities in Physiology Burroughs Wellcome Co. Richardson-Merrell Inc. .Walter C. Randall ............................. 15 CIBA Geigy Corp. Pfizer, Inc. Do-We Really Need More Physiologists? Grass Instrument Co. Revlon Health Care Group .. .Theodore Cooper. ............................ 15 Hoechst-Roussel Pharmaceu- A.H. Robins Co., Inc. Ph.D./s in Clinical Departments tical Co., Inc. Sandoz, Inc. .. .Alfred P. Fishman and Paul Jolly. ............... 17 Hoffmann-La Roche, Inc. G. D. Searle Et Co. APS Sections ICI Americas Inc. Smith Kline & French Labs. Endocrinology and Metabolism. .................... 22 International Minerals & E.R. Squibb b Sons, Inc. Cardiovascular. .................................. 22 Chemical Corp. The Upjohn Co. Renal ........................................... 23 An Analysis of Foreign and Domestic Responses to Eli Lilly and Co. Waverly Press Reprint Requests. .David C. Randall and McNeil Laboratories Wyeth Laboratories, Inc. Jerry N. Troncome ............................. 43 Merck Sharp Et Dohme CAS Brief .......................................... 47 Res. Labs. FROM THE PUBLICATIONS DESK Publications New Journal Developments and Two New Books. 41 American Journal of Physiology: Cell Physiology INTERNATIONAL NEWS American Journal of Physiology: Endocrinology and Metab- Letters to the Editor. 24 olism IBRO-UNESCO-NIH-ACADEMIC SINICA Workshop.. 25 American Journal of Physiology: Gastrointestinal and Liver MEMBERSHIP NEWS Physiology News from Senior Physiologist. ...................... 44 American Journal of Physiology: Heart and Circulatory Physi- ANNOUNCEMENTS OmY Postdoctoral Science Research Programs. .............. 21 American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Scientists Centers for Animal Welfare. ................. 49 Comparative Physiology Reproductive Biology Study Section Workshop. ........ 49 American Journal of Physiology: Renal, Fluid and Electrolyte First Southern Biomedical Engineering Conference. ...... 49 ......... .50 Physiology Gastroenterology Research Group Symposium. IBRO Travel Awards. ................................. 50 American Journal of Physiology (Consolidated) IBRO Annual Prize in Neurosciences. .................. 53 Journal of Applied Physiology: Respiratory, Environmental and Exercise Physiology PHYSIOLOGY TEACHER Salivary Gland Secretion. .H. L. Dorman, Journal of Neurophysiology L. L. Bellinger, L. W. Frazier, and F. E. Williams. 51 Physiological Reviews Letters to the Editor. 54 The Physiologist Book Reviews Handbooks of Physiology Comparative Physiology and Evolution of Vision in Clinical Physiology Series Invertebrates . 57 THE PHYSIOLOGIST (ISSN 0031-9376) is published bimonthly by the Epilepsy: A Window to Brain Mechanisms. 57 American Physiological Society at 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Captropil and Hypertension. Topics in Cardiovascular Maryland 20814. Disease......................................... 58 The Renin-Angiotensin System. 59 Subscriptions: Distributed with The Physiology Teacher to members as Vertebrates: Physiology, and Vertebrates: Adaptation, part of their membership. Non-members and institutions, $20.00 per year Readings from Scientific American. 59 in the United States; Canada, $23.00; Foreign and Pan American Postal Perinatal Pathology. Current Topics in Pathology. 60 Union, $25.00. The American Physiological Society assumes no respon- sibility for the statements and opinions advanced by contributors to THE Lung Connective Tissue: Location, Metabolism, and PHYSIOLOGIST. Response....................................... 60 Signs Of Anxiety, Rage, Or Distress Horace W. Davenport William Beaumont Professor of Physiology The University of Michigan This IS the story of Walter B. Cannon’s study of the sym- movements of the stomach were clearly seen, and food first ap- pathetic nervous system at the beginning and at the end of his peared in the duodenum at 10:15. But Cannon noticed “sev times scientlflc career (1). I am Interested in the first because I was a very distinctly . that when cat passed from quiet breathing into gastrointestinal physiologist and in the second because, when I rage w[ith] struggling the movements stopped entirely. .” went to Harvard In 1943, I added Arturo Rosenblueth to my COI- Then, “Looked again-movements going ok. Cat breathing lection of characters. quietly. Placed handkerchief over cats mouth and stopped Cannon began his experimental study of the effects of the sym- breathing. [Crossed out: as soon as breathing pathetic nervous system upon the digestive tract on November stopped- (movements stopped but constriction of the rings per- 28, 1897, when he was a second-year medical student at Harvard. sisted)?] In a moment cat began to struggle. Then the handker- The year before, on December 9, 1896, at the suggestion of Pro- chief was removed and breathing resumed. About % fessor Bowditch, Cannon had begun his fluoroscopic observa- minute later, constriction took place at the end of pyloric region.” tions on swallowing (21. Cannon finished his work on swallowing Peristalsis started again, but it stopped in each of the eight times in the Spring of 1897, and he turned to the study of the stomach Cannon repeated the experiment. and small mtestme. His paper (31, “The movements of the When Cannon published his paper (3), the last conclusion was, stomach studied by means of the Rbntgen rays,” contains his “10. The stomach movements are inhibited whenever the cat classlcal descnptlon of gastric peristalsis, and it marks the begin- shows signs of anxiety, rage, or distress.” Cannon had been a ning of Cannon’s masterly study of the mechanical factors of pupil of William James (61, and he knew that he could not tell digestton summarized in his book of 1911 (4). Cannon had dif- whether a cat was really anxious, angry, or distressed. He was ficulties in his earliest work (51, “because in some animals the not psychologically naive (7). perlstalsls was perfectly evident and in others there was no sign At the time Cannon began his work, the anatomical arrange- of activity. Several weeks passed before I discovered that this ment of the sympathetic nervous system had been determined, was associated with a difference in sex: the male cats were chiefly by J.N. Langley (8). A comprehensive account that Can- restive and excited on being fastened to the holder; the female non could have read was Langley’s chapter on “The sympathetic cats, especially If elderly, submitted with calmness to the and other related systems of nerves” in ScMfer’s Text-Book of restraint, and In them peristaltic waves took their normal course.” Physiof~ (9). Cannon read Langley’s papers in the Journal of On July 7 Cannon found “stomach still not moving. Cat Physiology and his review in Ergebnisse der Physiologic (10). put down and very restless.” On July 13 there was no movement Although some physiological actions of the sympathetic nervous In the stomach of a “big gray Tom.” Two days later, “no system, for example, those on the heart, had been studied in movement -cat raging mad.” And on October 23, “waves stop- some detail, Langley merely listed the effects on the muscle of ped after minutes. Cat raging Tom.” the alimentary canal as being “chiefly inhibition, sometimes con- Those were the passively made observations. On Sunday, traction.” November 28, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, Cannon did his Cannon continued his fluoroscopic observations until first experiment. He had a female cat with kittens, and he fed her sometime in 1908. Amidst a large number of fruitful observations 18 g of dry bread mixed with 5 g of bismuth subnitrate. At lo:04 and the experiments suggested by those observations, Cannon The Physlologlst, Vol 24, No. 5, 1981 1 studied the role of both the craniosacral nerves and the sym- function of the sympathetic nervous system. I sat in the back row pathetic nerves on gastrointestinal motility. He concluded (11) along with the rest of the faculty. As I walked out with the “that the function of the vagi is that of setting the muscles in a students, I heard one say, “What’s so great about that? We know tonic state, of making them exert a tension, so that in relation to all about it.” He was too innocent to realize that the old man in the gastric contents they are as if stretched by those contents.” On the well of the lecture theater, an old man suffering from four the other hand, depressive influences are exerted through sym- kinds of cancer (151, was the one who had done it all. pathetic