Experimental shock. The cause of the low blood pressure produced by muscle injury.

Blalock “demonstrated that surgical shock is not due to the elaboration of toxins nor to reflex neurologic mechanisms, but … to decrease in circulating the blood volume” (M.M. Ravitch). He wrote many papers on the subject, principally experimental studies; Ravitch considered this paper from 1930 the most important (see Johns Hopk. med. J., 1977, 140, 57-67, for bibliography).