Shock -- triggered by massive circula-

tory failure, the inevitable consequence

of every violent accident -- is an insidious

process leading inexorably to death. For

years doctors watched helpless as their pa-

tients slipped away. One man, Dr. R

Adams Cowley, decided to study the shock

phenomenon, leading at last to the

pioneering and fiercely controversial

Maryland Institute tor Emergency Medi-

cal Services, known to friends and enemies

alike as Shocktrauma. Now, in Shock-

trtl~lrt~l, two acclaimed journalists, one a

Pulitzer Prize winner, tell the fidl story of

how Cowley tbught against the medical

hierarchy to establish and preserve his ex-

perimental unit, the one place the Secret

Service would take the President if he

were injured. Dramatically and graphi-

cally they show how accident victims who

once would have died on the way to the

nearest enlergency room are now flown by

helicopter to a Shocktrauma unit con-

stantly prepared to take the most heroic

mea~sores. They describe the tremendous