Autonomic nervous system responses related to the Funkenstein

first clear formulation of what is now called autonomic imbalance, and made many com-ments relevant to present-day concepts of stress and psychosomatic disorders.3 The conclusions of Eppinger and Hess were based upon a large number of observations of the effects of auto-nomic drugs upon the human system. Vago-tonic persons reacted strongly to pilocarpine and atropine, but were relatively insensitive to adrenin, while sympatheticotonic individuals reacted strongly to adrenin and minimally to pilocarpine and atropine. Their observations led them to conclude that vagotonia is asso-ciated with a number of disorders such as asthma, cardiospasm, angina pectoris, gastric ulcers, and mucous colitis, conditions which today are frequently referred to as psychoso-matic. To them neurogenic disorders meant exaggerated autonomic irritability. They be-lieved that autonomic imbalance was largely due to hereditary factors, although they often mentioned that physical or psychological stim-ulation could precipitate acute autonomic reactions