Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1898-06-09
HOW THINKING is DONE.
The Theory Of the Brains Method OF
Working. D.. j.
LFrom the New York SUM-

point OF tindlng out what happens in
the brain, when q person thinks. 1t
has long been known that the brain
is the thinking organ, but just how
tho making of thought comes about
has been puzzle. The celebrated
Cabanis solved the matter off hand
by saying that the brain secretes
thought as the liver secretes bile.
This tersc saying passed into COM
mon use, but soon came to be recog-
nized as clever speech rather than
an explanation of the mystery. Now,
however, the most recent researches
of the microscopists are making it
appear that after all the saying is not
80 far wrong, but that, correctly in
torpreted, it in some measure ex-
presses the facts. Of course, thought,
boing intangible, is not properly to
be compared with bile or any other
physical substance, but IL II appears
that the processes in the brain whicn
produce thought, and without which
thinking is impossible, are compare
bic to those changes in the liver and
other organs which produce the tan
gible secrctions.
A committee of British physicians,
acting jointly, have been giving par
ticular attention to this topic for
some years, and their researches,
though not yet altogether complete,
already show some very interesting
results which, taken together with
those of investigators on the Con-
tinent, let us see long way into
the intricacies of tho brain. 1t is
shown unquivocally, for example,
that brain cell, which is the really
important part of the brain, actually
looses part of its substance during
action. The brain sells of persons
and of animals that have died during
period of great exhaustion from
over exertion are found to be greatly
changed from the condition of the
normal cell during times of health
and vigor. The cell of the exhausted
brain, instead of being plump and
full of nervous matter, is found to be
followed out or "vacuolatcd," n
cavity within its substance having
formed and being filled with water.
This means that q part of tho cell
substance has been actually consumed
during the time of brain activity,
precisely as coal is consumed when
one gets heat from furnace.
1t is found, further, that if an ami
nal whose brain cells are thus ex-
hausted is permitted to rest and to
sleep, its cells rapidly rccuperate,
new material being supplied from the
blood until the vacuolation has dis
appeared and the cell is practically
rs good ne new again. This explains
why sleep is necessary to our exist
ence. During waking hours on,
brain is literary worn away, and
sleep is the state during which the
repair shops of the brain makes good
the damage of the waking hours
THUS the brain of person who suf-
fcrs from insomnia is in the condi-
ton of locomotive which is run
night and day without going TO the
repair shop; disaster must ultimately
result.
1t is not sleep alone, however, that
rests the brain cell, though sleep is
absolutely essential to recuperation
of the brain as q whole. But not all
parts of the brain are involved in
any one kind of mental effort. The
blood supply of the brain ia &C
arranged that by expansion or con.
traction of different arteries parts oI
the brain may be flushed with blood
and other parts damned off, 80 tc
speak, somewhat as the various cur
rents of an irrigated field are regu
lated by the gardener. And 90 rapid
flow of blood is essential TO great
mental activity, this means that one
part of the brain may be very actively
at work while another part is rest
ing and recuperating. Thus it is
that % person suffering from brain
fatigue may leave his desk and go
out into the fields with o golf stick
or on the highways with a bicycle
and, by diverting his mind, give the
overworkod cells chance to rest and
rccuperato. But it must not be over,
looked that such exercise Involves
other brain cells, which, il. turn,
become exhausted, and that, in the
end, for the rccuperation Of the
brain as q whole, sleep jee31aolutely
essential. No reat'gE., no medi.
cine, no stimulant will take it's place
| The man who dOna not pivo himsolt