The role of the nervous system in smooth muscle contraction in anaphylaxis

The problem of the participation of the nervous system in the pathogenesis of anaphylactic shock has been the focus of attention of many researchers. Despite the large number of works, a consensus on this issue has not yet been reached. It is known that isolated organs of a sensitized animal can react to an antigen much more strongly than organs of a non-sensitized animal. By isolating the uterus, a piece of intestine, etc., we separate the latter from the central system and by this we judge that an anaphylactic reaction can proceed without the participation of the nervous system. At the same time, we forget two provisions: first, that the reaction of smooth muscles in isolated conditions differs in many respects from the reaction of the whole organism and, second, that these isolated organs contain elements of the autonomic nervous system in the form of fibers and nerve endings and peripheral ganglion cells. Therefore, we believe that the data obtained on isolated organs cannot serve as evidence of the passivity of the autonomic nervous system in anaphylactic shock, the participation of the latter should be studied on the whole organism. We have published our experimental data on the participation of the nervous system in the pathogenesis of anaphylactic shock. In this work, we tried to establish the importance of the nervous system in the reaction of smooth muscles in the whole organism, which is given a dominant role in the pathogenesis of anaphylactic shock.