The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-05-27
THE SEAT OF sEAsIcKNEss.
The Ear, Not the Stomach, is Response
. bic for the Misery.

The Ear, Not the Stomach, is RESPONSE
bic for the Misery
! Seasckness, that woful malady which
first makes the suffered afraid he is
going to die and later inspires him
with terror for fear he won't die, is an
annoyance which brings a shudder to
the man or woman who contemplates
going anywhere by water. Nearly
everybody knows what seasickness Is.
1t is no respecter of persons, but at
lacks the high and the lowly, the rich
and the poor.
All kinds of ameloratng agents are
sought and resorted to with religious
fervency to quell the qualm in the cpl
gastrum, but without avail. Lemons,
lines and all kinds of acids are used to
still the cyclone going on in the stom-
ach. In the agony which follows an at
tack of seasickness any promise can be
exacted of a victim in return for imme-
date relief. And yet the stomach is
not to blame. Nine out of ten people
will declare the seat Of seasickness to be
the stomach. If one should tell a man
who had been through the ordeal that
the seat of the trouble is not in the
stomach, but in the ear, the integrity
of his mental processes would be seri-
ously Questioned. The ex-victim would
probably regard himself as past grand
master in all that appertains to sea-
sickness and would in all probability
Indignantly refuse to listen to learned,
dissertation on the ear as having any
thing to do with seasickness. And yet
it is true that the ear is the part which
first kicks up the disturbance which
manifests itself in the stomach convul-
sions.
The ear is not only built to hear with,
but also the apparatus which gives to
us the sense of balance is laid in the
ear. Before we can know whether we
are standing up or lying down we must
learn it from the ear. The apparatus
of BALANCE is as follows: 1t is located in
the temporal bone. This bone forms
part of the skull wall in the region of
the temple, and another portion of it,
which projects at right angles to that
part which forms part of the skull wall,
forms part of the floor of the skull cav
ity where the brain is. The latter por-
ton is known as the "petrus" portion
of the temporal bone and it is in this
portion that the balance machinery lies.
In the petrus portion are three semi
circular canals uniting at their base.
These canals lie in three different
planes, and the man, no matter in what
position he may be, is always in one of
these planes. If he falls he will fall in
one of these planes.
These canals have a common base,
and are hollow. They are lined on the
inside with q membrane in which the
filaments of the nerve which controls
our balance are distributed or, in other
words, the nerve which tells us whether
we are erect or lying down, whether we
Are falling, etc. There is fluid in
these canals which only scantily fills
them. When we are standing erect this !
iuid lies at the common base of the
and by it's weight on the nerve
ilaments upon which the fluid lies,
rritates them, and they send nerve |
impulse to the seat of origin of their |
nerve in the brain and we are inform |
ID that we are in the erect posture.
If, however, we change our posture, |
or instance, lie down, the fluid in the
canals run into that canal which is in
he same plane in which we are lying.
Sravity moves the fluid. Here new |
let of nerve filaments are agitated by
he fluid and an impulse is again sent
O their seat of origin in the brain, and |
he brain tells US that we are lying
Continued on Eighth Page.)