The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-03-30
HOW THINKING is DONE.
THE THEORY OF THE BRAINS
METHOD OF WORKING.

Millions of Brain Cells That Operate
Apparently on the Principle of a
Great Telephone Exchange, with
Nerves for Wires-The Great Func-
ton of Sleep.
From the New York Sun.
At last scientists seem to be on the
point of finding out what happens in the
brain when a person thinks. 1t has long
been known that the brain is the thinking
organ, but just how the making of thought
comes about has been a puzzle. The eel
ebrated Cabanis solved the matter offhand
by saying that the brain secretes thought
as the liver secretes bile. This terse say
ing passed into common use, but soon
came to be recognized as a clever speech
rather than an explanation of the mys-
terry. Now, however, the most recent re-
searches of the microscopists are making
it appear that after all the saying is not
so far wrong, but that, correctly inter-
preted, it in some measure expresses the
facts OF course thought, being intangi-
bic, is not properly to be compared with
bile or any other physical substance, but
it appears that the processes in the brain
which produce thought, and without
which thinking is impossible, are compar-
able to those changes in the liver and
other organs which produce the tangible
secrelions.
A committee of British physicians. act
ing jointly, have been giving particular
attention TO this topic for some years, and
their researches, though not yet alto
gether complete, ALREADY show some very
interesting results which, taken togeth-
er with those of investigators on the
continent, let US see q long way into the
intricacies of the brain. 1t is shown I'M
equivocally, for example, that brain
cell, which is the really important part
of the brain, actually loses part of its sub
stance during action. The brain cells of
persons and animals that have died dur
ing a period of great exhaustion from
overexertion 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 ''vacuo-
lated" cavity within its substance hav-
Ing formed and being filed with water
This means that a part of the cell sub
stance has been actually consumed during
the time of brain activity, precisely as
coal is consumed when one gets heat
from a furnace.
1t is found, further, that If an animal
whose brain cells are thus exhausted is
permitted TO rest and to sleep its cells rap
idly recuperate, new material being sup.
piled from the blood until the vacuola-
ton has disappeared and the cell is prac-
tically as good as new again. This ex-
plains why sleep is necessary to our exist
ence. During waking hours our brains
are literally worn away, and sleep is the
state during which the repair shops of
the brain make good the damage of the
waking hours. Thus the brain of a person
who suffers from insomnia is in the con-
dition of locomotive which is run night
and day without going to the repair shops;
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
| a whole. But not all parts of the brain
are involved in any one kind of mental eff
fort. The blood supply of the brain is so
arranged that by expansion or contraction
of different arteries parts of the BRAIN
may be flushed with blood and other parts
damned off, so to speak, somewhat as the
various currents of an irrigated field are
regulated by the gardener. And as 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 resting and recuperating.
Thus it is that person suffering from
brain fatigue may leave his desk and go
out into the fields with golf stick, or on
the highways with a bicycle, and by di-
verting his mind, give the overworl1ed cells
chance to rest and recuperate. But it
must not be overlooked that such exercise
involves other brain cells, which, in turn,
become exhausted, and that in the end
for the recuperation of the brain as
whole, sleep is absolutely essential. No
recreation, no medicine, no stmulant will
take it's place. The man who does not
give himself sufficient hours of sleep or
who is unable to sleep when he makes the
effort, is literally burning away his brain
substance and can no more keep on, in
definitely in this way than a locomotive
can run on indefinitely without getting
fresh supplies of fuel.
In this new view it appears that each
brain cell is a sort OF storage battery,
which can perform a certain amount of
work and then must be recharged. This
likeness to a battery is further emphasized
by the fact that the nature of the brain
cells work consists, like that of any other
battery. of the sending out of at least
along fbers that may be likened to wires.
Brain cells, when examined under the mi
croscope, are found not to be simple glob-
ular bodies, like many other kinds of cells
On the contrary, they are irregular in
shape, and when properly strained, little
wire-lilIe fibers can be seen jutting out
from them in various directions. 1t is
along these fibers that the messages come
tos the cell. and other messages are sent
out, much as messages go and come from
a telephone central office.
This likenng of the brain to telephone
central Office is a comparison that may be
carried to a remarkable length Indeed, no
other comparison serves so well to give
one a correct notion of the method of
brain action But until recently there was
one phase of the matter that could not be
explained How is 1t that the various mes
sages that are surging through the brain
are directed to proper channels, among
these multitudinous wires? When you call
up the central office you give a certain
number, ana the operator connects your
particular wire with that number. When
you are through talking the operator
breaks the circuit, and you can no longer
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