Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1876-03-11
The Engine of the Body.

crets of the Sanctum" says: The brain
may fairly be likened to the steam en-
CINE of large mill. 1t is the engine of
the body, and the nerves through which
it directs all the movements of the
body are its belts and shafts. When the
steam engine of the mill is doing its le-
gitimate work, disseminating power
through the great building, sending the
belts flying on their endless rounds, and
whirling the heavy shafts and wheels,
its action is normal and healthy, and, if
1 may be allowed to compare it with
living thing, it feels rather better when
night comes in consequence of its exer-
else. But sever its connection with the
ponderous works that ramify through
the building; relieve it of the exertion
necessary to move the hundred piecesof
machinery; leave it alone with only
its fires, its boilers, its cylinders, its
piston rods, and fly wheel, and let it
rush on. 1t is then working all within
itself, while the great body of the es-
tablishment stands still; its fires roar as
usual; the vanishing streams of water
rapidly as ever change into pent up
steam, chatting like Gagged lion to burst
the iron bounds within which it is con-
fined; the piston rods dart back and
forth like bolts of lightning; the heavy
fly wheel huns round, making the walls
and the earth itself tremble and shake;
then that engine is wearing itself away
much faster than if it were running the
vast machinery of the mill, and is in
danger of sudden wreck.
1t is so with the working brain. 1t is
accustomed to running the machinery of
tho whole body, and so dividing and
doing out it's steamlike powers in
steady streams. 1t Directs every move
ment says to the right hand: "Do
this" and to the left "Do that" and
out through the nerves it sends that
strange life-power that enables the
limbs to obey. Now, when the editor
sits down to his work, the whole body,
with the exception of the right hand, is
at rest, and the brain works alone, like
the crushing engine that finds itself freed
from the heavy machinery that kept its
motion moderate and steady. Through
the long day or weary night the brain
rushes Oh, like the detached engine that
whirls it's dizzy fly wheel and it is not
strange that the tenement of the brain
trembles, like the walls of the building
that the brain itself collapses, as when
the engine flies to pieces and that the
whole fabric crumbles and falls before
it's time. The power of the mill is the
steam engine, yet nothing about the
mill requires such careful and delicate
attention; the power of the man is the
brain, and one little overstrain upon it
may do more harm than the mangling of
all the limbs. A man may live, be
physically healthy and mentally bril-
liant after all his limbs have been cut
off but the final burden under which
the brain breaks down brings apoplexy,
then speedy death. OF that disease,
which fortunately is no lingering one,
probably all hard working, certainly all
overworked journalists have felt those
warning symptoms-vertigo, unnatural
drowsiness imaginary black specks
floating before the eyes, q sense of pres
sure and confusion in the head, and q
temporary numbuess apparently of the
brain-sometimes of limb.