Part 47

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.

EFFECT OF VIOLENT PASSIONS UPON HEALTH (p. 202).--The man who is given to outbursts of anger is sure to experience a rapid change of the physical organs, in case he does not die in a fit of rage.

Death under such circumstances is of frequent occurrence. Sylla, Valentinian, Nerva, Wenceslas, and Isabeau of Bavaria, all died in consequence of an access of passion. The medical annals of our own time recount many instances of fatal effects following the violent brain disturbance caused by anger. The symptoms usually are pulmonary and cerebral congestions. Still such fatal accidents as these are exceptional; as a rule, the passions of hate and anger deteriorate the constitution by slow, but sure degrees.

How, then, do we explain those morbid phenomena which have their origin in misplaced affection, in disappointed ambition, in hatred, or in anger, and which culminate either in serious chronic maladies, or in death or suicide? They all seem to start from an impairment of the cerebro-spinal centers. The continual excitation of these by ever-present emotions determines a paralysis of the central nerve substance, and thus affects its connections with the nerves extending out to the various organs. These nerves next degenerate by degrees, and soon the great functions are compromised. The heart and the lungs cease to act with their normal rhythm, the circulation grows irregular and languishing. Appetite disappears, the amount of carbonic acid exhaled decreases, and the hair grows white, owing to the interruption of the pigmentary secretion. This general disturbance in nutrition and secretion is attended with a fall of the body's temperature and anæmia. The flesh dries up and the organism becomes less and less capable of resisting morbific influences. At the same time, in consequence of the reaction of all these disturbances on the brain, the psychic faculties become dull or perverted, and the patient falls into a decline more or less complicated and aggravated by grave symptoms. Under these conditions he dies or makes away with himself.

Two organs, the stomach and the liver, are often affected in a peculiar and characteristic way in the course of this pathological evolution. The modifications produced in the innervation, under the influence of cephalic excitement, cause a disturbance of the blood circulation in the liver. This disturbance is of such a nature that the bile, now secreted in larger quantity, is resorbed into the blood instead of passing into the biliary vesicle. Then appears what we call jaundice. The skin becomes pale, then yellow, owing to the presence in the blood of the coloring matter of the bile. This change in the liver is usually developed slowly: sometimes, however, jaundice makes its appearance suddenly. Villeneuve mentions the case of two youths who brought a discussion to an end by grasping their swords; suddenly one of them turned yellow, and the other, alarmed at this transformation, dropped his weapon. The same author speaks of a priest who became jaundiced on seeing a mad dog jump at him. Whatever may be said of these cases, we must reckon painful affections of the soul among the efficient causes of chronic diseases of the liver.

The digestion, says the author of a work published some years ago, is completely subjected to the influence of the moral and intellectual state. When the brain is wearied by the passions, appetite and digestion are almost gone....There is nowhere perfect health, save when the passions are well regulated, harmonized, and equipoised. Moral temperance is as indispensable to a calm and tranquil life as physiological temperance....If it is your desire that your circulatory, respiratory, and digestive functions should be discharged properly, normally, if you want your appetite to be good, your sleep sound, your humor equable, avoid all emotions that are overstrong, all pleasures that are too intense, and meet the inevitable sorrows and the cruel agonies of life with a firm and resigned soul. Ever have some occupation to employ and divert your mind, and to make it proof against the temptations of want or of desire. Thus will you attain the term of life without overmuch disquiet and affliction.--FERNAND PAPILLON, in the Revue des Deux Mondes.

BRAIN WORK, OVERWORK, AND WORRY (p. 205).--Overstimulation of the Brain in Childhood.--Most civilized communities have enacted laws against the employment of children in severe physical labor. This is well enough, for the muscles of young persons are tender and weak, and not, therefore, adapted to the work to which cupidity or ignorance would otherwise subject them. But no such fostering care does the State take of the brains of the young. There are no laws to prevent the undeveloped nervous system being overtasked and brought to disease, or even absolute destruction. Every physician sees cases of the kind, and wonders how parents of intelligence can be so blind to the welfare of their offspring as to force, or even to allow, their brains to be worked to a degree that, in many cases, results in idiocy or death. Only a few months ago I saw for the first time a boy of five years of age, with a large head, a prominent forehead, and all the other signs of mental precocity. He had read the first volume of Bryant's "History of the United States," and was preparing to tackle the other volumes! He read the magazines of the day with as much interest as did his father, and conversed with equal facility on the politics of the period. But a few weeks before I saw him he had begun to walk in his sleep, then chorea had made its appearance, and on the day before he was brought to me he had had a well-marked epileptic paroxysm. Already his mind is weakened --perhaps permanently so. Such cases are not isolated ones. They are continually occurring.

The period of early childhood--say up to seven or eight years of age--is that during which the brain and other parts of the nervous system are most actively developing, in order to fit them for the great work before them. It is safe to say that the only instruction given during this time should be that which consists in teaching children how to observe. The perceptive faculties alone should be made the subjects of systematic attempts at development. The child should be taught how to use his senses, and especially how to see, hear, and touch. In this manner, knowledge would be acquired in the way that is preeminently the natural way, and ample food would be furnished for the child's reflective powers.--DK. WM. A. HAMMOND, Popular Science Monthly, November, 1884.

Reserve Force.--The part which "a stock of energy" plays in brain work can scarcely be exaggerated. Reserves are of high moment everywhere in the animal economy, and the reserve of mental force is in a practical sense more important than any other....Without this reserve, healthy brain work is impossible. Pain, hunger, anxiety, and a sense of mind weariness, are warning tokens of exhaustion. When the laborious worker, overcome with fatigue, "rouses" himself with alcohol, coffee, tea, or any other agent which may chance to suit him, he does not add a unit of force to his stock of energy; he simply narcotizes the sense of weariness, and, the guard being drugged, he appropriates the reserve....Meanwhile, the effort to work becomes daily more laborious, the task of fixing the attention grows increasingly difficult, thoughts wander, memory fails, the reasoning power is enfeebled; physical nerve or brain disturbance may supervene, and the crash will then come suddenly, unexpected by on-lookers, perhaps unperceived by the sufferer himself.

Overwork and Worry.--The miseries of "overwork," pure and simple, are few and comparatively insignificant....The natural safeguards are so well fitted for their task that neither body nor mind is exposed to the peril of serious exhaustion so long as their functions are duly performed. Overwork is impossible so long as the effort made is natural....There is then no excuse for idleness in the pretense of possible injury. If insane asylums were searched for the victims of "overwork," they would nearly all be found to have fallen a prey to "worry," or to the degeneracy which results from lack of purpose in life, and of steady employment ....The cause or condition which most commonly exposes the reserve of mental energy to loss and injury is worry. When a strong and active mind breaks down suddenly in the midst of business, it is usually worn out by this cause rather than by the other....Work in the teeth of worry is fraught with peril. The unhappy victim is ever on the verge of a catastrophe; if he escape, the marvel is not at his strength of intellect so much as at his good fortune. Worry is disorder, however induced, and disorderly work is abhorred by the laws of nature, which leave it wholly without remedy.

The pernicious system of Cram slays its thousands, because uneducated, undeveloped, inelastic intellects are burdened and strained with information adroitly deposited in the memory,--as an expert valet packs a portmanteau, with the articles likely to be first wanted on the top. Desultory occupation, mere play with objects of which the true interest is not appreciated, ruins a still larger number. But worry, that bane of brain work and mental energy, counts its victims by tens of thousands.--DR. J. MORTIMER GRANVILLE, in "Worry," Nineteenth Century.

SLEEP (p. 206).--Some Curiosities of Sleep.--One of the most refined and exquisite methods of torture is long continued deprivation of sleep. The demand for unconscious rest is so imperious that nature will accommodate itself to the most unfavorable surrounding conditions. Thus, in forced marches, regiments have been known to sleep while walking; men have slept soundly in the saddle; and persons will sometimes sleep during the din of battle. It is remarkable how noises to which we have been accustomed will fail to disturb our natural rest. Those who have been long habituated to the endless noise of a crowded city frequently find difficulty in sleeping in the oppressive stillness of the country. Prolonged exposure to intense cold induces excessive somnolence, and if this be induced, the sleep passes into stupor, the power of resistance to cold becomes rapidly diminished, and death is the inevitable result. Intense heat often produces drowsiness, but, as is well known, is not favorable to natural sleep....It is difficult to determine with exactness the phenomena of sleep that are absolutely physiological, and to separate those that are slightly abnormal. We can not assert, for example, that a dreamless sleep is the only normal condition of repose of the system; nor can we determine what dreams are due to previous trains of thought, or to such impressions from the external world received during sleep as are purely physiological, and what are due to abnormal nervous influence, disordered digestion, etc.

The most remarkable experiments upon the production of dreams of a definite character, by subjecting a person during sleep to peculiar influences, are those of Maury. The hallucinations produced in this way are called hypnagogic (from its derivation this term is properly applied only to phenomena observed at the instant when we fall asleep, or when we are imperfectly awakened, and not to the period of most perfect repose), and they occur when the subject is not in a condition favorable to sound sleep.

The experiments made by Maury upon himself are so curious and interesting that we quote the most striking of them in full.

First Observation.--I am tickled with a feather successively on the lips and inside of the nostrils. I dream that I am subjected to a horrible punishment, that a mask of pitch is applied to my face, and then roughly torn off, tearing the skin of the lip, the nose, and the face.

Second Observation.--A pair of pincers is held at a little distance from my ear, and rubbed with steel scissors. I dream that I hear the ringing of bells; this soon becomes a tocsin, and I imagine myself in the days of June, 1848. (The time of the French Revolution.)

Third Observation.--I am caused to inhale Cologne water. I dream I am in a perfumer's shop; the idea of perfumes doubtless awakens the idea of the East; I am in Cairo, in the shop of Jean Farina....

Fifth Observation.--I am slightly pinched on the nape of the neck. I dream that a blister is applied, which recalls to my mind a physician who had treated me in infancy.

Seventh Observation....The words Azar, Castor, Leonore, were pronounced in my ear; on awaking I recollected that I had heard the last two words, which I attributed to one of the persons who had conversed with me in my dream.--FLINT'S Physiology of Man.

The transition stage between the dream simple and the dream acted is witnessed in the spasmodic movements which a vivid dream produces in the limbs or person of the sleeper. The dreamer engages in a fierce struggle, and twitchings of his legs and arms indicate the feeble response of body to the promptings of mind removed from its wonted power over the frame. Even the dog, as he sleeps, apparently dreams of the chase, and gives vent to his sensations by the short, sharp bark, or sniffs the air, and starts in his slumber as if in response to the activity with which, in his dreaming, he is hurrying along after the object of pursuit....Persons have been known to swim for a considerable time in the somnambulistic state without waking at the termination of their journey; others have safely descended the shaft of a mine, while some have ascended steep cliffs, and have returned home in safety during a prolonged sleep vigil. (See p. 204.)--DR. ANDREW WILSON, F.R.S.E., What Dreams are Made of.

Sleep and Conscience.--Edward Everett Hale says: Never go to bed in any danger of being hungry. People are kept awake by hunger quite as much as by a bad conscience. Remembering that sleep is the essential force which starts the whole system, decline tea or coffee within the last six hours before going to bed. Avoid all mathematics or intricate study of any sort in the last six hours. This is the stuff dreams are made of, and hot heads, and the nuisances of waking hours. Keep your conscience clear. Remember that because the work of life is infinite, you can not do the whole of it in any limited period of time, and that therefore you may just as well leave off in one place as another.

The Art of Rising Early.--The proper time to rise is when sleep ends. Dozing should not be allowed. True sleep is the aggregate of sleeps, or is a state consisting in the sleeping or rest of all the several parts of the organism. Sometimes one and at other times another part of the body, as a whole, may be the least fatigued, and so the first to awake; or the most exhausted, and therefore the most difficult to arouse. The secret of good sleep is, the physiological conditions of rest being established, so to work and weary the several parts of the organism as to give them a proportionately equal need of rest at the same moment. To wake early, and feel ready to rise, a fair and equal start of the sleepers should be secured; and the wise self-manager should not allow a drowsy feeling of unconsciousness, or weary senses, or an exhausted muscular system, to beguile him into the folly of going to sleep again when once he has been aroused. After a few days of self-discipline, the man who resolves not to doze, that is, not to allow some sleepy part of his body to keep him in bed after his brain has once awakened, will find himself, without knowing why, an early riser.

INFLUENCE OF SUNLIGHT (p. 207).--Light is an essential element in producing the grand phenomena of life, though its action is ill understood. Where there is light there is life, and any deprivation of this principle is rapidly followed by disease of the animal frame, and the destruction of the mental faculties. We have proof of this in the squalor of those whose necessities compel them to labor in places to which the blessings of sunshine never penetrate, as in our coal mines, where men having everything necessary for health, except light, exhibit a singularly unhealthy appearance. The state of fatuity and wretchedness to which those individuals have been reduced, who have been subjected for years to incarceration in dark dungeons, may be referred to the same deprivation.-- ROBERT HUNT, Poetry of Science.

Effect of Dungeon Life.--"You can not imagine, Mr. Kennan," said a condemned revolutionist to me in Siberia, "the misery of prolonged confinement in a casemate of the fortress under what are known as dungeon conditions. My casemate was sometimes cold, generally damp, and always gloomy. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I lay there in solitude, hearing no sound save that of the high-pitched, melancholy bells of the fortress cathedral, which slowly chimed the quarter hours, and which always seemed to say: 'Here thou liest--lie here still.' I had absolutely nothing to do except to pace my cell from corner to corner, and think. For a long time I used to talk to myself in a whisper; to repeat softly everything in the shape of literature that I could remember, and to compose speeches which, under certain imagined conditions, I would deliver; but I finally ceased to have energy enough to do even this, and used to sit for hours in a sort of stupor, in which, so far as I can now remember, I was not conscious of thinking at all. Before the end of the first year, I grew so weak, mentally and physically, that I began to forget words. I knew what ideas I desired to express, but some of the words that I needed had gone from me, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I could recover them. It seemed sometimes as if my own language were a strange one to me, or one which, from long disuse, I had forgotten. I greatly feared insanity, and my apprehension was increased by the fact that two or three of my comrades in cells on the same corridor were either insane or subject to hallucinations; and I was often roused at night and thrown into a violent chill of nervous excitement by their hysterical weeping, their cries to the guard to come and take away somebody, or something which they imagined they saw, or their groans and entreaties when, in cases of violent delirium, they were strapped to their beds by the gendarmes."--GEORGE KENNAN, in Russian State Prisoners, The Century, March, 1888.

THE GROWTH AND POWER OF POISON HABITS (p. 218).--In order to distinguish a poison stimulant from a harmless and nutritive substance, Nature has furnished us three infallible tests:

1. The first taste of every poison is either insipid or repulsive.

2. The persistent obtrusion of the noxious substance changes that aversion into a specific craving.

3. The more or less pleasurable excitement produced by a gratification of that craving is always followed by a depressing reaction....