Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-04-23
Nerves and How to Use Them.

Mrs. PARTNGToN is said to have ex-
pressed a regret that she had not been
born in the times when people had no
nerves. We hear so much nowadays
not only of nervous women, but OF
nervous men, that it is high time we
took a little reckoning as to our or
gaHization. There can be no doubt that
as we rise higher in the scale of animal
life and Of intelligence we find more
delicate and sensitive system. This
necessarily means that the nervous de-
velopment is more extended and more
responsive to all external impressions.
II is like highly-wrought and elaborate
ly-eKecuted musical instrument, which,
because of its capacities, must have
more complicated and more exquisite
adaptations. But this does not really
mean weakness Of any part or any more
liability when properly used to get out
of order. If there is any one depart
ment of medical science which in the
last thirty years has Outstripped the
other, it is that which has to do with
the human nervous system. The re-
searches of Sir Charles Bell have been
followed by those of numerous physiolo-
gists and eXperimenters, until we can
speak with accuracy Of most OF the tunc-
tions of the nervous system, and so
have come TO know the hygienic laws
which are applicable thereto. The
very definition of the nervous system
at once tells us that it is the great mo-
tive and regulative force of human life.
If so, to set it ajar is to disturb the very
issues of life. Whether we speak of the
cerebro-spinal system, or, as Bichat
called it, the nervous system of organic
life, or of the great sympathetic, gan
glionic, or nervous system of organic,
vegetable life, it is equally true that upon
one and the other depends that action
of organs and that sympathy between
organs which only can prevent the body
from being a jangle of fearful and pain
full discords. Dalton defines the func-
ton of the nervous system to be "to
associate the different parts of the
body in such a manner that stimulus
applied to one organ may excite the ac-
tivitY of another" So, to use Dang's
expression,w we may call nerves the " life
unity and the life-motion of the physi.
cal creature" The two systems are
so accurately cO-ordinated, and the SEN
sitive and motor functions are so ad
justed, and reflex and automatic act
are so concerted that the whole is capa'
BILE of a rhythm more exquisite than tha
of any music below the spheres. Where
there is a proper bringing up o.
the composite nature of man
we are more and more impressed
how difficult it is to put this radica
| part of our nature out of order. 1T
| very construction is such as to be ready
for any allowable emergencies; to b'
responsive to all usual changes, eithel
! of contact, scene, or circumstances, II
the world. 1t is hard to disarrange yet
numberless as are the cases of disorder
Once out of order it will not be mendeC
by any common tinkering. Nay, it i
so much a wrought and divinely
wrought excellency that human inquiry
may find in il skill which is wholly in
imitable. Its study is becoming NOR
and more a study not only in the inter
ests of human health and physica
science, but of all education. Huxle,
saws that "the object of intellectual
education is TO create such indissOlubl
associations of our ideas of things, in tn
order and relation in which they occu
in Nature, as that we shall organic
conscious actions into unconscious ones
SO leading us to do by force of habi
what we first learn to do by repeate
Tolitions. It is this study of the nerv
Gus functions that is giving to ments
hygiene such prominence in the thought
of our Wisest disciplinarians.
One of the first thoughts in all life an
in all education is so to deal with th
nervous system of child as to preserv
its harmony, and then to make
| automatic only in that sphere in whic
IL is safe thus TO develop what is pr
marily yolitiOnal. We think the time
of study, the modes of reproof and pun
ishment, the exercise of the senses, tn
effects of severity and fright, and man
other like matters are to be very closel
studied in their nervous impressions
We have known a sudden and startling
surprise to excite chorea in an appar
ENTITY healthy girl. One of the wors
cases of stammering we ever knew of,
lady of twenty-five, commenced whel
she was a child Of four years old, in he
attempt to welcome her mother home
after an absence which left the chilli
alone until it began TO grow dark. Int
study of the nervous systems OF chlld
hood, of their mode of receiving i'm
pressions, and of the methods of edu
eating the senses as related thereto
ought to occupy the earnest thought o
every parent and teacher. Tea, coffee
tobacco have no place in our America
civilization for the young, although the
so often come TO be used, to create