The Origin and Nature of Emotions by George W. Crile (best reads of all time TXT) 📖

of anger. When the business man is conducting a struggle for existence against his rivals, and when the contest is at its height, he may clench his fists, pound the table, perhaps show his teeth, and exhibit every expression of physical combat.

Fixing the jaw and showing the teeth in anger merely emphasize the remarkable tenacity of phylogeny. Although the development of the wonderful efficiency of the hands has led to a modification of the once powerful canines of our progenitors, the ancestral use of the teeth for attack and defense is attested in the display of anger.

In all stations of life differences of opinion may lead to argument and argument to physical combats, even to the point of killing.

The physical violence of the savage and of the brute still lies surprisingly near the surface (Fig. 21).

 

We have now presented some of the reasons based largely on gross animal behavior why fear is to be regarded as a response to phylogenetic association with physical danger. In further support of this hypothesis, I shall now present some clinical and experimental evidence.

Although there is not convincing proof, yet there is evidence that the effect of the stimulus of fear upon the body when unaccompanied by physical activity is more injurious than is an actual physical contest which results in fatigue without gross physical injury.

It is well known that the soldier who, while under fire, waits in vain for orders to charge, suffers more than the soldier who flings himself into the fray; and that a wild animal endeavoring to avoid capture suffers less than one cowering in captivity.

An unexpressed smouldering emotion is measurably relieved by action.

It is probable that the various energizing substances needed in physical combat, such as the secretions of the thyroid, the adrenals (Cannon), etc., may cause physical injury to the body when they are not consumed by action (Fig. 22).

 

That the brain is definitely influenced—damaged even—

by fear has been proved by the following experiments: Rabbits were frightened by a dog but were neither injured nor chased.

After various periods of time the animals were killed and their brain-cells compared with the brain-cells of normal animals—

wide-spread changes were seen (Fig. 13). The principal clinical phenomena expressed by the rabbit were rapid heart, accelerated respiration, prostration, tremors, and a rise in temperature. The dog showed similar phenomena, excepting that, instead of such muscular relaxation as was shown by the rabbit, it exhibited aggressive muscular action.

Both the dog and the rabbit were exhausted but, although the dog exerted himself actively and the rabbit remained physically passive, the rabbit was much more exhausted.

 

Further observations were made upon the brain of a fox which had been chased for two hours by members of a hunt club, and had been finally overtaken by the hounds and killed.

Most of the brain-cells of this fox, as compared with those of a normal fox, showed extensive physical changes (Fig. 4).

 

The next line of evidence is offered with some reservation, but it has seemed to me to be more than mere idle speculation.

It relates to the phenomena of one of the most interesting diseases in the entire category of human ailments—I refer to exophthalmic goiter, or Graves’ disease, a disease primarily involving the emotions.

This disease is frequently the direct sequence of severe mental shock or of a long and intensely worrying strain.

The following case is typical: A broker was in his usual health up to the panic of 1907; during this panic his fortune and that of others were for almost a year in jeopardy, failure finally occurring.

During this heavy strain he became increasingly nervous and by imperceptible degrees there developed a pulsating enlargement of the thyroid gland, an increased prominence of the eyes, marked increase in perspiration—profuse sweating even—palpitation of the heart, increased respiration with frequent sighing, increase in blood-pressure; there were tremor of many muscles, rapid loss of weight and strength, frequent gastro-intestinal disturbances, loss of normal control of his emotions, and marked impairment of his mental faculties.

He was as completely broken in health as in fortune.

These phenomena resembled closely those of fear and followed in the wake of a strain which was due to fear.

 

In young women exophthalmic goiter often follows in the wake of a disappointment in love; in women, too, it frequently follows the illnesses of children or parents during which they have had to endure the double strain of worry and of constant care.

Since such strains usually fall most heavily upon women, they are the most frequent victims of this disease. Now, whatever the exciting cause of exophthalmic goiter, whether it be unusual business worry, disappointment in love, a tragedy, or the illness of a loved one, the symptoms are alike and closely resemble the phenomena of one of the great primitive emotions. How could disappointment in love play a role in the causation of Graves’ disease? If the hypothesis which has been presented as an explanation of the genesis and the phenomena of fear be correct, then that hypothesis explains also the emotion of love. If fear be a phylogenetic physical defense or escape which does not result in muscular action, then love is a phylogenetic conjugation without physical action.

The quickened pulse, the leaping heart, the accelerated respiration, the sighing, the glowing eye, the crimson cheek, and many other phenomena are merely phylogenetic recapitulations of ancestral acts.

The thyroid gland is believed to participate in such physical activities.

Hence it may well follow that the disappointed maiden who is intensely integrated for a youth will, at every thought of him, be subjected by phylogenetic association to a specific stimulation analogous to that which attended the ancestral consummation. Moreover, a happy marriage has many times been followed by a cure of the exophthalmic goiter which appeared in the wake of such an experience.

 

The victims of Graves’ disease present a counterpart of emotional exhaustion. That the emotions in Graves’ disease are abnormally acute is illustrated by my personal observation of the death of a subject of this disease from fear alone.

Whatever the exciting cause of this disease, the symptoms are the same; just as in fear, the phenomena are the same whatever the exciting cause.

 

Figures 12 and 16 show the resemblance between the outward appearances of a patient with Graves’ disease and of a person obsessed by fear.

Fear and Graves’ disease have the following phenomena in common: Increased heart-beat, increased respiration, rising temperature, muscular tremors, protruding eyes, loss in weight; Cannon has found an increased amount of adrenalin in the blood in fear and Frankel in Graves’ disease; increased blood-pressure; muscular weakness; digestive disturbances; impaired nervous control; hypersusceptibility to stimuli; in protracted intense fear the brain-cells show marked physical changes, and in Graves’ disease analogous changes are seen (Figs. 13 C and 15). In Graves’ disease there seems to be a composite picture of an intense expression of the great primitive emotions.

If Graves’ disease be a disease of the great primitive emotions, or rather of the whole motor mechanism, how is the constant flow of stimulation of this complicated mechanism supplied? It would seem that there must be secreted in excessive amount some substance that activates the motor mechanism. The nervous system in Graves’

disease is hypersusceptible to stimuli and to thyroid extract.

It might follow that even a normal amount of thyroid secretion would lead to excessive stimulation of the hypersusceptible motor mechanism.

 

This condition of excessive motor activity and hyperexcitability may endure for years. What is the source of this pathologic excitation?

The following facts may give a clue. In suitable cases of Graves’

disease, if the thyroid secretion is sufficiently diminished by a removal of a part of the gland or by interrupting the nerve and the blood supply, the phenomena of the disease are diminished immediately, and in favorable cases the patient is restored to approximately the normal condition.

The heart action slows, the respiratory rate falls, the restlessness diminishes, digestive disturbances disappear, tremors decrease, there is a rapid increase in the body weight, and the patient gradually resumes his normal state. On the other hand, if for a period of time extract of the thyroid gland is administered to a normal individual in excessive dosage, there will develop nervousness, palpitation of the heart, sweating, loss of weight, slight protrusion of the eyes, indigestion; in short, most of the phenomena of Graves’

disease and of the strong emotions will be produced artificially (Figs. 15 and 23). When the administration of the thyroid extract is discontinued, these phenomena may disappear. On the other hand, when there is too little or no thyroid gland, the individual becomes dull, stupid, and emotionless, though he may be irritable; while if a sufficient amount of thyroid extract be given to such a patient he may be brought back to his normal condition.

 

Hence we see that the phenomena of the emotions may within certain limits be increased, diminished, or abolished by increasing, diminishing, or totally excluding the secretion of the thyroid gland.

 

Graves’ disease may be increased by giving thyroid extract and by fear.

It may be diminished by removing a part of the gland, or by interrupting the blood and nerve supply, or by complete rest.

In addition, at some stage of Graves’ disease there is an increase in the size and in the number of the secreting cells.

These facts regarding the normal and the pathologic supply of thyroid secretion point to this gland as one of the sources of the energizing substance or substances, by means of which the motor phenomena of animals are executed and their emotions expressed.

 

Anger is similar to fear in origin and, like fear, is an integration and stimulation of the motor mechanism and its accessories.

Animals which have no natural weapons for attack experience neither fear nor anger, while the animals which have weapons for attack express anger principally by energizing the muscles used in attack.

Although, as has already been stated, the efficiency of the hands of man has largely supplanted the use of the teeth, he still shows his teeth in anger and so gives support to the theory that this emotion is of remote ancestral origin and proves the great persistence of phylogenetic association. On this conception we can understand why it is that a patient consumed by worry—which to me signifies interrupted stimulation, a state of alternation between hope and fear—suffers so many bodily impairments and diseases even.

This hypothesis explains the slow dying of animals in captivity.

It explains the grave digestive and metabolic disturbances which appear under any nerve strain, especially under the strain of fear, and the great benefits of confidence and hope; it explains the nervousness, loss of weight, indigestion—in short, the comprehensive physical changes that are wrought by fear and by sexual love and hate.

On this hypothesis we can understand the physical influence of one individual over the body and personality of another; and of the infinite factors in environment that, through phylogenetic association, play a role in the functions of many of our organs.

It is because under the uncompromising law of survival of the fittest we were evolved as motor beings that we do not possess any organs or faculties which have not served our progenitors in accomplishing their survival in the relentless struggle of organic forms with one another.

We are now, as we were then, essentially motor beings, and the only way in which we can meet the dangers in our environment is by a motor response.

Such a motor response implies the integration of our entire being for action, this integration involving the activity of certain glands, such as the adrenals (Cannon), the thyroid, the liver, etc., which throw into the blood-stream substances which help to form energy, but which, if no muscular action ensues, are harmful elements in the blood.