Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 2.djvu/82

 238 BOOK REVIEWS

For this purpose Dr. Kempf has collected from various sources a mass of material bearing upon the relation between the "autonomic system" and the emotions, and endeavours to shew that afferent impulses, from the viscera in the autonomic system, are alone respon- sible for states of emotion; so that we feel pleasure at food from the afferent impulses from the salivary glands and stomach. Cannon's work on hunger and the stomach is that considered in detail. We see no mention of the paucity ot afferent fibres in th6 autonomic nervous system.

It is sometimes difficult to decide quite what Dr. Kempt means by the term 'autonomic system'. Sometimes he uses it in the sense ot Langley's autonomic nervous system, and at other times to include all the organs innervated by this system, although he often uses the term 'autonomic apparatus' in the latter sense. We take it it is in the above senses that the term 'autonomic' should be used. But he says (p. 2) "In the amoeba and the phagocyte, as free, perfect cells, one finds a complete autonomic apparatus, but only a temporary projicient apparatus in the pseudopodia." At otiier times he uses autonomic almost in the sense 'affective', as if any organ influenced by emotion must be squeezed into the term 'autonomic'. Thus (p. 9) he includes, among other structures under the term 'autonomic apparatus', "tiie liver for the elimination of waste products ; the respiratory system for tiie intake and elimination of necessary gases; tiie unstriped parts of the skeletal muscle cells which maintain the postural tonus of the muscle."

If one includes enough in the term 'autonomic', ol course one's tiiesis becomes easier to prove. With the question of the voluntary muscles we shall deal later. There is no evidence adduced, nor do we know oi any, that the autonomic nervous system controls either tiie elimination of waste products by tiie liver or kidneys (other tiian those secondary to vascular changes), or the exchange of gases.

Dr. Kempf makes certain assumptions which are necessary to the truth of his theory; among tiiese that the James-Lange theory of tiie emotions is true, about which tiiere is legitimate difference of opinion, few psychologists in this country at any rate supporting it; tiiat the autonomic nervous system is the primitive Nervous System; and that the tone oi the voluntary muscles is dependent on the sympathetic nerve supply.

In tiie development ot the vertebrate, tiie primitive neural tiibe gives rise both to the projicient and autonomic nervous systems and the one cannot be said to be developed before the other. Dr. Kempt seems to assume that the primitive ganglionated cord of invertebrates represents the autonomic nervous system only — but here the two systems are not separated; in many invertebrates this cord supplies specialised striated muscles.