RESPIRATION AND OPPRESSION

I

Oppression on the chest has in it something so irresistible that the will cannot subdue it. A slight emotion, a little exertion, a loss of blood, or a fever is sufficient, nay, it is only necessary to enter a room where the air is warm or bad, to stoop or to go up steps, in order at once to accelerate the breath. So long as we are quiet, we may believe ourselves able to modify our respiratory movements at will; but, when the calm ceases, the working of our machine becomes apparent, and we are no longer able to arrest it. Our liberty is in no respect complete with regard to the functions of the organism. We are like children whom Nature allows to play so long as there is no danger to life.

In order to understand the meaning of the continual variations which respiration undergoes, we must remember that our body is a very complicated furnace, in which, to keep the flame of life aglow, something must constantly be burnt. The respiratory movements, the expansion and contraction of the lungs, represent the untiring work of a bellows which keeps up the fire in the smithy of our organism. We may breathe in two ways: either we expand the upper part of the thorax by raising the ribs, or we expand it lower down by depressing the diaphragm. The first movement is more common with women, in whom the rise and fall of the bosom during emotion is so characteristic; the other is more usual with men. When we sleep it is especially the diaphragm which reposes; with some persons the abdomen is almost motionless during sleep, but a slight noise or push, a voice, or any external action suffices to make it resume its functions, and the diaphragmatic breathing becomes more active. This takes place suddenly, without our waking or being aware of it, and without any recollection of it remaining in consciousness.

After this slight uneasiness, during which sleep becomes lighter for a few minutes, is past, the respiration resumes the rhythm and characteristic form of deep sleep. These changes, which take place without any participation of the will, form one of the most wonderful arrangements observable in this perfect machine of ours. When we lose consciousness, Nature could not expose our body to the influences of the external world, leaving it defenceless, a prey to dangerous enemies. It is necessary that a detachment of the nerve-centres should, even during sleep, keep watch on the outside world, and in good time prepare the material conditions of consciousness and the attitude of resistance. All unconscious phenomena which I have seen appear in the transition from sleeping to waking are destined to increase the circulation of the blood in the brain and reanimate the functions and energy of the body. These centres are sentinels on the defensive, watching continually and sounding the alarm when danger is nigh.

Man falls asleep after the labours of the day. The muscles relax, head and arms fall powerless, the lids droop and cover the eyes, the legs no longer hold us erect. The feverish waking activity ceases, the fire slackens gradually within us, combustion is so much less active, that the respiratory movements, which, during calm, waking moments introduce about seven litres of air into the lungs every minute, have now reduced the ventilation to one litre per minute. The heart, too, rests by lessening the frequency of its contractions and diminishing the energy and extent of the systole; the vessels enlarge, the pressure of blood falls, and the body becomes noticeably colder. But, in spite of this loss of consciousness and complete relaxation of the body, there is still a close net of nerves and masses of nerve-cells which retain their energy and watch over us. A voice, a distant noise, a ray of light, a slight touch, any impression is enough to rouse the bellows to renewed activity, to double the number of heart-beats, to cause the vessels of the whole surface of the skin to contract, thus driving the blood to the centres of life and restoring the material conditions of consciousness.

In the struggle for existence that organism will most easily escape the injuries of the external world in which this unconscious vigilance is most perfect, and which is able with the greatest promptitude to pass from the condition of profound repose to that of greatest activity before the danger comes too near and injury is inevitable.

II

These studies of mine of the respiration in sleeping and waking man make us understand more readily the signification of oppression during emotion. The difference is only one of intensity and degree, not of the nature and quality of the phenomenon. There is the same relation between waking and sleeping as between calm and agitation of mind. Let us consider the proof of this.

If we wish to study the respiratory movements with great accuracy, it is no longer sufficient to observe how the thorax expands and contracts; we must apply to chest and abdomen extremely delicate instruments which mark automatically the slightest motion of the thorax. These instruments, called pneumographs, are made in such a manner as to cause no annoyance to the person on whom they are applied. I shall communicate a few observations which I made on my dog. He is such a good animal, that when I apply the pneumograph to the thorax and put him on the table in order to write the respiratory movements, he lies for hours quietly slumbering. But a mere nothing, the slightest noise, is sufficient to cause an alteration in the rhythm of breathing. This is an experiment which I have often repeated before my colleagues, in order to show the extreme sensibility of the respiratory mechanism to psychic conditions.

While all was quiet and the pneumograph was writing the respiratory curve, it was enough if I spoke to someone, if I gave an order, touched the apparatus or the table, or even if I looked at the dog and spoke kindly to him—his breathing immediately became more rapid.

If the impression were slight, the effect lasted a few seconds; sometimes I found that a single respiration had become quicker, but generally the effect lasted longer. If a person whom the dog did not know placed himself before him, the former respiratory rhythm did not return; if I scolded him, the effect lasted many minutes till the emotion had subsided.

Since I was in the laboratory at Leipzig I have made researches into the changes which cerebral activity exercises on the respiratory movements of men. This is a very complicated problem, as individual differences are great. In the curves which I obtained from some of my colleagues, who kindly placed themselves at my disposition for my observations on respiration, I found that the differences during intense mental work are very considerable. The reason for this must be sought in the variable excitability of the nerve-centres, and especially in the fact that the respiratory mechanism acts in a contrary manner during strong and during weak emotions. I made a few experiments on myself in order to see how the breathing changed, when someone suddenly made a great noise, as, for instance, by firing a gun behind my back while I was reading or absent-minded. I repeated these experiments on dogs, and always found that a deeper, often very deep, inspiration is caused, then there seems to be an arrest of respiration which may last for several seconds, the respiratory movements becoming immediately afterwards more frequent than before. Sometimes in a dog I observed that a shot caused, first, a deep inspiration, then a light expiration and inspiration, while the chest was much expanded; then another deep inspiration like the first, after which the chest emptied itself of the air accumulated in the lungs, and a succession of quicker breaths with more rapid inspirations than usual was drawn. Those who wish to find at once a plausible reason for all phenomena will perhaps say that these deep breaths serve to oxidise and vivify the blood streaming through the lungs, so that in this way the organism may prepare itself for defence.

III

Let us now see of what parts the respiratory machine consists, and how it puts its force into operation. In man the different parts of this mechanism never act sufficiently in independence of each other to allow of our surprising them separately at work. Only after decapitation has the head been seen to make inspiratory movements although separated from the trunk. Physicians who have had to be present at the execution of the condemned tell of the terrible effect produced when the head of the man rolls, gasping, to the ground, becoming instantaneously of a corpse-like pallor, and disfigured by strange, spasmodic contractions, the eyes rolling irregularly, horribly, for several seconds. The trunk is already motionless, the blood, which at first poured forth in great streams from the arteries of the neck, only spurts feebly and at intervals, still obeying the weakening pulsations of the heart. The eyes at last turn upwards, but life is not yet quite extinct, the mouth still opens from time to time as though with a great effort. The inspirations which at first distended the nostrils and opened wide the mouth soon become less distinct and less frequent, until at last they die away altogether.

If, after cutting off the head of a very young animal, we stop the hÆmorrhage by means of a bandage and then introduce a bellows into the trachea, so that respiration may be artificially stimulated, we see that the headless animal begins to breathe after the cessation of the perturbing influence of the first shock. With kittens it is sufficient to administer a small dose of strychnine (0·0005 gr.) in order to produce respiratory movements in the trunk after decapitation, which, however, become gradually weaker as they no longer suffice to maintain the excitability of the nerve-centres through the oxidation of the blood.

This simple experiment proves that respiration is accomplished by nerves branching off from the brain and spinal cord. The consciousness of our ego is not necessary; even a decapitated animal responds by modifications of respiration when we pinch or squeeze his paws, because the sensory nerves of the skin transmit the impressions of the external world to the spinal cord. The deep, noisy, and interrupted inspirations of anyone taking a plunge-bath are also involuntary, and when we are overcome by fear it is the same mechanism which produces a deep inspiration.

At every step which physiology makes, we discover fresh complications, other wheels, if I may use the expression, within the wheels of our organism. Until quite recently it was thought that the brain controlled the respiratory centre, accelerating or arresting its movements; but it has now been shown by Christiani that by means of a vivid light which must strike the eyes of the animal, deep and frequent inspirations may be produced even after the brain has been removed. Impressions of sound, which would have frightened the animal, produce the same effect, the oppression being even greater than in normal conditions. This experiment shows us that, independently of cerebral action and psychic operations, the rhythm of breathing alters at every change which takes place in the external world, at every peripheral irritation of the sensory nerves. Thus are explained the oppression and palpitation of the heart which befall us at the banging of a door, at a clap of thunder, and which we cannot suppress, which are produced by a sudden noise on a thousand occasions before we learn the cause, and do not disappear even when we have done so, and recognised the unimportant origin of our perturbation.

In these studies, also, the materiality of psychic processes becomes evident, as well as the slowness of operation in those phenomena which are believed to be the most rapid in life.

Just as an electric spark or a flash of lightning which lasts the one-thousandth part of a second leaves an impression in us a hundred times longer; just as our eye is unable to follow the different positions of a burning brand swung round in the dark, but sees, as it were, a ribbon of fire; just as we burn our hand when we touch a glowing object before we have time to feel the pain; just as, when in movement, we often stumble against obstacles which confront us without our having time to stop; so the impressions which reach the nerve-centres keep us agitated for some time without our having the force to stand still midway on the declivity down which the sudden impetus of the emotion is speeding us. We have all experienced this inability of the organism, we know that we do not succeed in subduing even the slightest mental perturbations. Suppose a person is walking quietly along, when suddenly he sees before him the figure of a man whom he was trying to avoid. At once his blood begins to boil. Scarcely, however, has he seen the man before he becomes aware that he has made a mistake, and he is glad; but his heart has already begun to beat more vigorously, the perturbation and oppression do not at once subside, but continue to annoy for some time. They are like the continued vibrations of a cord that has been shaken, like a flame shooting up as the spark disturbs the equilibrium of the molecules in the nerve-centres, like the echo of a sound reverberating in the nervous fibres and slowly dying away.

IV

What is the last expression of pain, the last manifestation of sensibility? This is a question we must study in order to learn the relative importance of the phenomena making up the picture of fear, and to see which of these offer the most lengthened resistance in the struggle with death.

By means of chloral or alcohol I have produced such a profound sleep in dogs or rabbits that they could not rouse themselves again. One cannot imagine a quieter decease, a gentler and more gradual sinking of the organism into the arms of death.

As soon as a strong dose of chloral or alcohol has been administered, the animal becomes somewhat excited, the hind legs begin to give way; when we call him he cannot turn without falling; he rises, makes another attempt, totters, turns round, falls again, rises with difficulty, and finally lies down stretched out and tranquil. From time to time he tries to raise his head and then falls into a leaden sleep. The respiration is slower, the temperature gradually falls, at length the wagging of the tail ceases. The lids droop over the sleepy eyes, the face is tranquil, the ears motionless, whatever pain the efforts made to awaken him may cause. One might think he was dead.

The only method which physiologists had of finding out whether an animal in this condition was still capable of feeling was by investigating whether the heart and blood-vessels still responded to painful stimuli.

My friend, Professor FoÀ, showed in a work carried out together with Professor M. Schiff,[14] that even when heart and blood-vessels no longer respond, when the circulation is no longer modified, whatever may be the perturbation of the nerve-centres, a last trace of sensibility may still be observed in the eye, the pupil dilating whenever the animal is irritated.

But I have seen dogs, poisoned with chloral, of which the temperature had sunk to 30°, so extremely slow had the chemical processes of respiration become; no electric current, no mechanical action was capable of producing even the slightest movement of the limbs or face; the pulse, pressure of blood, the pupil, in a word everything had become impassive, no effect being obtained on the pulse even when the cardiac nerves were laid bare, severed, irritated by electric currents—and yet the animal was still sensible. By carefully studying the respiration I saw that it was modified whenever a leg or any other part of the body was pinched.

The alteration of the breathing is therefore the last function of the organism in which sensibility and emotion reveal themselves.

V

We know that, whatever nerve of the skin is irritated, a succession of deeper and more frequent inspirations follows, and we have seen that this phenomenon is useful to the organism. But if the excitement of a nerve becomes so strong as to cause violent pain, or if a very vivid impression is received as in fright, the mechanism stops short midway in a deep inspiration, and this is injurious.

Some few times I have been in danger of my life, and always remember to have felt a terrible oppression, as though my breath had been cut short. A few months ago I was overtaken by a storm on the mountains, when the lightning struck the ground about fifty steps from me, and I remember having noticed that respiration was arrested for several seconds.

We, who carry this fragile machine of our body about with us continually, ought to remember that every shock which exceeds the usual measure may prove fatal. A slight touch of the pendulum accelerates the rotation of the wheels, a stronger one stops their movement; a slight impetus helps us onward, a rude push throws us to the ground. It is thus that the phenomena of fear, which may be useful to us in lesser degrees, become morbid and fatal to the organism as soon as they exceed a certain limit; for this reason fear must be looked upon as a disease.

Most noticeable is this irregularity of respiration in children. We all remember to have seen children fall, and to have remarked with astonishment that, after a shrill scream, they remained still for some time, finally bursting into broken sobs. This is a suspension of respiration. When the sudden pain of a violent blow is felt, the child draws a deep breath with contracted glottis, and emits a sharp cry, then at the height of the inspiration a spasmodic arrest occurs.

There are some very nervous children in whom this spasmodic arrest takes place even in slight emotions. I knew a child of this kind, who, one day, because its father had not taken it with him, began to cry brokenly, and suffered an arrest of breath which lasted a minute or longer. The child’s mouth was wide open, he became livid, lips and countenance were purplish, the eyes were half shut and full of tears. The struggle for breath was so great that the child lost its balance and fell, expelled fÆces and urine, and then recovered as though nothing had happened. I was told that this took place whenever the child was thwarted.