A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Hygienic Physiology

J >> Joel Dorman Steele >> Hygienic Physiology




Another peril still lies in the wake of this masterful poison habit.
Tobacco causes thirst and depression that only too often and naturally
lead to the use of liquor. (See p. 338.)

3. OPIUM.

Opium is the dried juice of the poppy. In Eastern countries, this flower
is cultivated in immense fields for the sake of this product. When a cut
is made in the poppy head, a tiny tear of milky juice exudes, and hardens.
These little drops are gathered and prepared for the market, an acre
yielding, it is said, about twenty-five pounds. Throughout the East, opium
is generally smoked; but in Western countries laudanum and paregoric
(tinctures of opium), and morphine--a powerful alkaloid contained in
opium, are generally used. The drug itself is also eaten.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECT.--Opium, in its various forms, acts directly upon the
nerves, a small dose quieting pain, and a larger one soothing to sleep. It
arouses the brain, and fires the imagination to a wonderful pitch.
[Footnote: So far as its effects are concerned, it matters little in what
form opium is taken, whether solid as in pills, liquid as in laudanum, or
vaporized, as when inhaled from a pipe. The opium slave is characterized
by trembling steps, a curved spine, sunken glassy eyes, sallow withered
features, and often by contraction of the muscles of the neck and fingers.
In the East, when the drug ceases its influence, the opium eater renews it
with corrosive sublimate till, finally, this also fails of effect, and he
gradually sinks into the grave.] The reaction from this unnatural excitant
is correspondingly depressing; and the melancholy, the "overwhelming
horror" that ensues, calls for a renewal of the stimulus. The dose must be
gradually increased to produce the original exhilaration. [Footnote: The
victim of opium is bound to a drug from which he derives no benefits, but
which slowly deprives him of health and happiness, finally to end in
idiocy or premature death. Whatever the victim's condition or surroundings
may be, the opium must be taken at certain times with inexorable
regularity. The liquor or tobacco user can, for a time, go without the use
of these agents, and no regular hours are necessary. During sickness, and
more especially during the eruptive fevers, he does not desire tobacco or
liquor. The opium eater has no such reprieves; his dose must be taken,
and, in painful complications affecting the stomach, a large increase is
demanded to sustain the system. If, in forming the habit, two doses are
taken each day, the victim is obliged to maintain that number. It is the
unceasing, everlasting slavery of regularity that humiliates opium eaters
by a sense of their own weakness.--HUBBARD _on The Opium Habit and
Alcoholism._] The seductive nature of the drug leads the unfortunate
victim on step by step until he finds himself fast bound in the fetters of
one of the most tyrannical habits known to man.

To go on is to wreck all one's powers--physical and mental. To throw off
the habit, requires a determination that but few possess. Yet even when
the custom is broken, the system is long in recovering from the shock.
There seems to be a failure of every organ. The digestion is weakened,
food is no longer relished, the muscles waste, the skin shrivels, the
nervous centers are paralyzed, and a premature old age comes on apace. De
Quincey, four months after he had cast away the opium bonds, wrote, "Think
of me as one still agitated, writhing, throbbing, palpitating, shattered."

No person can be too careful in the use of laudanum, paregoric, and
morphine. They may be taken on a physician's prescription as a sedative
from racking pain, [Footnote: Many persons learn to inject morphine
beneath the skin by means of a "hypodermic syringe." The operation is
painless, and seems an innocent one. It throws the narcotic directly into
the circulation, and relief from pain is often almost instantaneous. But
the danger of forming the opium habit is not lessened, and the effect of
using the drug in this form for a long time is just as injurious as opium
smoking itself. Opium in one of its forms enters largely into the
composition of many of the painkillers and patent medicines so freely
advertised for domestic use in the present day, and for this reason the
greatest care is needed in having recourse to any of them. Taken, perhaps,
in the first instance, to alleviate the torments of neuralgia or
toothache, what proves to be a remedy soon becomes a source of
gratification, which the wretchedness that follows on abstinence renders
increasingly difficult to lay aside. The same must be said of bromide of
potassium and hydrate of chloral, frequently resorted to as a remedy for
sleeplessness: the system quickly becomes habituated to their use, and
they can then be relinquished only at the cost of much suffering. Indeed,
the last mentioned of these two drugs obtains over the mind a power which
may be compared to that of opium, and is, moreover, liable to occasion the
disease known as chloralism, by which the system ultimately becomes a
complete wreck. Looking at the whole question of the medicinal use of
narcotics, it is perhaps not too much to say that they should never be
employed except with the authority of a competent medical adviser.--
_Chambers's Journal_.] but if followed up for any length of time, the
powerful habit may be formed ere one is aware. Then comes the opium
eater's grave, or the opium eater's struggle for life!

4. CHLORAL HYDRATE.

CHLORAL HYDRATE is a drug frequently used to cause sleep. It leaves behind
no headache or lassitude, as is often the case with morphine. It is,
however, a treacherous remedy. It is cumulative in its effects, _i.
e._, even a small and harmless dose, persisted in for a long period,
may produce a gradual accumulation of evil results that in the end will
prove fatal.

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECT of its prolonged use is very marked. The appetite
becomes capricious. The secretions are unnatural. Nausea and flatulency
often ensue. Then the nervous system is involved. The heart is affected.
Sleep, instead of responding to the drug, as at first, is broken and
disturbed. The eyesight fails. The circulation is enfeebled, and the pulse
becomes weak, rapid, and irregular. There is a tendency to fainting and to
difficult respiration. Sometimes the impoverished blood induces a disease
resembling scurvy, the ends of the fingers ulcerate, and the face is
disfigured by blotches. An excessive dose may result in death.

Prolonged habitual use of chloral hydrate tends to debase the mind and
morals of the subject in the same manner as indulgence in alcohol, ether,
or chloroform.

5. CHLOROFORM.

CHLOROFORM is an artificial product generally obtained, by distillation,
from a mixture of chloride of lime, water, and alcohol. It was discovered
in 1831 by Samuel Guthrie, of Sackett's Harbor, New York. It is a
colorless, transparent volatile liquid, with a strong ethereal odor.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECT.--Chloroform is a powerful anæsthetic, which, when
inhaled, causes a temporary paralysis of the nervous system, and thus a
complete insensibility to pain. There is great peril attending its use,
even in the hands of the most skillful and experienced practitioners. It
is sometimes prescribed by a physician, and afterward (as in the case of
laudanum, morphine, and chloral) the sufferer, charmed with the release
from pain and the peaceful slumber secured, buys the Lethean liquid for
himself. Its use soon becomes an apparent necessity. The craving for the
narcotic at a stated time is almost irresistible. The patient, compelled
to give up the use of chloroform, will demand, entreat, pray for another
dose, in a heartrending manner, never to be forgotten. Paleness and
debility, the earliest symptoms, are followed by mental prostration.
Familiarity with this dangerous drug begets carelessness, and its victims
are frequently found dead in their beds, with the handkerchief from which
they inhaled the volatile poison clutched in their lifeless hands.

6. COCAINE.

Cocaine is an alkaloid prepared from the erythroxylon coca, a shrub, five
or six feet high, found wild in the mountainous regions of Ecuador and
Peru, where it is also cultivated by the natives. The South American
Indians, for centuries, have chewed coca leaves as a stimulant, but the
highly poisonous principle, now called cocaine, to which the plant owes
its peculiar effects, was not discovered till 1859. Within a few years
this drug has come into favor as an agent to produce local anæsthesia, and
has proved exceedingly valuable in surgical operations upon the eye and
other sensitive organs. It has already, however, been diverted from its
legitimate use as a benefaction, and to the other evils of the day is now
added the "cocaine habit," which is, perhaps, even more dangerous and
difficult to abandon than either the alcohol or the opium habit.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECT.--Applied locally, cocaine greatly lessens and even
annihilates pain. Taken internally, it acts as a powerful stimulant to the
nervous system, its physiological action being similar to that of theine
(p. 170), caffeine, and theobromine. Used hypodermically, its immediate
effect, says one to whom it was thus administered, is to cause "great
pallor of countenance, profuse frontal perspiration, sunken eyes, enlarged
pupils, lessened sensitiveness of the cornea and conjunctiva, lowered
arterial tension, and a feeble pulse and heart beat. Under its influence I
could not reason. Everything seemed to run through my brain, and in vain I
summoned all my will power to overcome an overwhelming sleepiness." A few
doses of this drug will in some persons produce temporary insanity. Used
to excess, it leads to permanent madness or idiocy. "Cocaine," says a
writer in the _Medical Review_, "is a dangerous therapeutic toy not to
be used as a sensational plaything. If it should come into as general use
as the other intoxicants of its class, it will help to fill the asylums,
inebriate and insane."

PRACTICAL QUESTIONS.

1. Why is the pain of incipient hip disease frequently felt in the knee?

2. Why does a child require more sleep than an aged person?

3. When you put your finger in the palm of a sleeping child, why will he
grasp it?

4. How may we strengthen the brain?

5. What is the object of pain?

6. Why will a blow on the stomach sometimes stop the heart?

7. How long will it take for the brain of a man six feet high to receive
news of an injury to his foot, and to reply?

8. How can we grow beautiful?

9. Why do intestinal worms sometimes affect a child's sight?

10. Is there any indication of character in physiognomy?

11. When one's finger is burned, where is the ache?

12. Is a generally closed parlor a healthful room?

13. Why can an idle scholar read his lesson and at the same time count the
marbles in his pocket?

14. In amputating a limb, what part, when divided, will cause the keenest
pain?

15. What is the effect of bad air on nervous people?

16. Is there any truth in the proverb that "he who sleeps dines"?

17. What does a high, wide forehead indicate?

18. How does indigestion frequently cause a headache?

19. What is the cause of one's foot being "asleep"? [Footnote: Here the
nervous force is prevented from passing by compression. Just how this is
done, or what is kept from passing, we can not tell. If a current of
electricity were moving through a rubber tube full of mercury, a slight
squeeze would interrupt it. These cases may depend on the same general
principle, but we can not assert it.--HUXLEY. The tingling sensation
caused by the compression is transferred to the foot, whence the nerve
starts.]

20. When an injury to the nose has been remedied by transplanting skin
from the forehead, why is a touch to the former felt in the latter?

21. Are closely curtained windows healthful?

22. Why, in falling from a height, do the limbs instinctively take a
position to defend the important organs?

23. What causes the pylorus to open and close at the right time?

24. Why is pleasant exercise most beneficial?

25. Why does grief cause one to lose his appetite?

26. Why should we never study directly after dinner?

27. What produces the peristaltic movement of the stomach?

28. Why is a healthy child so restless and full of mischief?

29. Why is a slight blow on the back of a rabbit's neck fatal?

30. Why can one walk and carry on a conversation at the same time?

31. What are the dangers of overstudy?

32. What is the influence of idleness upon the brain?

33. State the close relation which exists between physical and mental
health and disease.

34. In what consists the value of the power of habit?

35. How many pairs of nerves supply the eye?

36. Describe the reflex actions in reading aloud.

37. Under what circumstances does paralysis occur?

38. If the eyelids of a profound sleeper were raised, and a candle brought
near, would the iris contract?

39. How does one cough in his sleep?

40. Give illustrations of the unconscious action of the brain.

41. Is chewing tobacco more injurious than smoking?

42. Ought a man to retire from business while his faculties are still
unimpaired?

43. Which is the more exhaustive to the brain, worry or severe mental
application?

44. Is it a blessing to be placed beyond the necessity for work?

45. Show how anger, hate, and the other degrading passions are destructive
to the brain. [Footnote: "One of the surest means for keeping the body and
mind in perfect health consists in learning to hold the passions in
subservience to the reasoning faculties. This rule applies to every
passion. Man, distinguished from all other animals by the peculiarity that
his reason is placed above his passions to be the director of his will,
can protect himself from every mere animal degradation resulting from
passionate excitement. The education of the man should be directed not to
suppress such passions as are ennobling, but to bring all under
governance, and specially to subdue those most destructive passions,
anger, hate, and fear."]

46. Are not amusements, to repair the waste of the nervous energy,
especially needed by persons whose life is one of care and toil?

47. Is not severe mental labor incompatible with a rapidly growing body?

48. How shall we induce the system to perform all its functions regularly

49. How does alcohol interfere with the action of the nerves?

50. What is the general effect of alcohol upon the character?

51. Does alcohol tend to produce clearness and vigor of thought?

52. What is the general effect of alcohol on the muscles?

53. Does alcohol have any effect on the bones? The skin?

54. What is the cause of the "alcoholic chill"?

55. Show how alcohol tends to develop man's lower, rather than his higher,
nature.

56. When we wish really to strengthen the brain, should we use alcohol?

57. Why is alcohol used to preserve anatomical specimens?

58. What is meant by an inherited taste for liquor?

59. Ought a person to be punished for a crime committed during
intoxication?

60. Should a boy ever smoke?

61. To what extent are we responsible for the health of our body?

62. Why does alcohol tend to collect in the brain?

63. Does the use of alcohol tend to increase crime and poverty?




VIII.


THE SPECIAL SENSES.

"See how yon beam of seeming white
Is braided, out of seven-hued light;
Yet in those lucid globes no ray
By any chance shall break astray.
Hark, how the rolling surge of sound,
Arches and spirals circling round,
Wakes the hush'd spirit through thine ear
With music it is heaven to hear."

HOLMES.


"Let us remember that if we get a glimpse of the details of natural
phenomena, and of those movements which constitute life, it is not in
considering them as a whole, but in analyzing them as far as our limited
means will permit. In the vibrations of the globe of air which surrounds
our planet, as in the undulations of the ether which fills the immensity
of space, it is always by molecules which are intangible for us, put in
motion by nature, always by the infinitely little, that she acts in
exciting the organs of sense, and she has modeled these organs in a
proportion which enables them to partake in the movement which she
impresses upon the universe. She can paint with equal facility on a
fraction of a line of space on the retina, the grandest landscape or the
nervelets of a rose leaf; the celestial vault on which Sirius is but a
luminous point, or the sparkling dust of a butterfly's wing; the roar of
the tempest, the roll of thunder, the echo of an avalanche, find equal
place in the labyrinth whose almost imperceptible cavities seem destined
to receive only the most delicate sounds."

_ _
| 1. THE TOUCH...| 1. Description of the Organ.
| |_2. Its Uses.
| _
| 2. THE TASTE...| 1. Description of the Organ.
| |_2. Its Uses.
| _
| 3. THE SMELL...| 1. Description of the Organ.
| |_2. Its Uses.
| _ _
| | 1. Description of the | a. _External Ear._
| | Organ...............| b. _Middle Ear._
| 4. THE HEARING.| |_c. _Internal Ear._
| | 2. How we Hear
| |_3. Hygiene of the Ear.
| _
| | 1. Description of the Organ.
| | 2. Eyelids, and Tears.
| | 3. Structure of the Retina.
|_5. THE SIGHT...| 4. How we see.
| 5. The Use of the Crystalline Lens.
| 6. Near and Far Sight.
| 7. Color Blindness.
|_8. Hygiene of the Eyes.


THE SPECIAL SENSES

1. TOUCH.

DESCRIPTION.--Touch is sometimes called the "common sense," since its
nerves are spread over the whole body. It is most delicate, however, in
the point of the tongue and the tips of the fingers. The surface of the
cutis is covered with minute, conical projections called _papillæ_
(Fig. 24). [Footnote: In the palm of the hand, where there are at least
twelve thousand in a square inch, we can see the fine ridges along which
they are arranged.] Each one of these papillæ contains its tiny nerve
twigs, which receive the impression and transmit it to the brain, where
the perception is produced.

USES.--Touch is the first of the senses used by a child. By it we obtain
our idea of solidity, and throughout life rectify all other sensations.
Thus, when we see anything curious, our first desire is to handle it.

The sensation of touch is generally relied upon, yet, if we hold a marble
in the manner shown in Fig. 57, it will seem like two marbles; and if we
touch the fingers thus crossed to our tongue, we shall seem to feel two
tongues. Again, if we close our eyes and let another person move one of
our fingers over a plane surface, first lightly, then with greater
pressure, and then lightly again, we shall think the surface concave.

FIG. 57.

[Illustration:]

This organ is capable of wonderful cultivation. The physician acquires by
practice the _tactus eruditus_, or learned touch, which is often of
great service, while the delicacy of touch possessed by the blind almost
compensates the loss of the absent sense. [Footnote: The sympathy between
the different organs shows how they all combine to make a home for the
mind. When one sense fails, the others endeavor to remedy the defect. It
is touching to see how the blind man gets along without eyes, and the deaf
without ears. Cuthbert, though blind, was the most efficient polisher of
telescopic mirrors in London. Saunderson, the successor of Newton as
professor of mathematics at Cambridge, could distinguish between real and
spurious medals. There is an instance recorded of a blind man who could
recognize colors. The author knew one who could tell when he was
approaching a tree, by what he described as the "different feeling of the
air."] (See p. 346.)

2. TASTE.

DESCRIPTION.--This sense is located in the papillæ of the tongue and
palate. These papillaæ start up when tasting, as you can see by placing a
drop of vinegar on another person's tongue, or your own before a mirror.
The velvety look of this organ is given by hair-like projections of the
cuticle upon some of the papillæ. They absorb the liquid to be tasted, and
convey it to the nerves. [Footnote: An insoluble substance is therefore
tasteless.] The back of the tongue is most sensitive to salt and bitter
substances, and, as this part is supplied by the ninth pair of nerves
(Fig. 56), in sympathy with the stomach, such flavors, by sympathy, often
produce vomiting. The edges of the tongue are most sensitive to sweet and
sour substances, and as this part is supplied by the fifth pair of nerves,
which also goes to the face, an acid, by sympathy, distorts the
countenance.

FIG. 58.

[Illustration: _The Tongue, showing the several kinds of Papillæ--the
conical_ (D) _the whip like_ (K, I), _the circumvallate or entrenched_
(H, L); E, F, G, _nerves;_ C, _glottis._--LANKESTER.]

THE USE OF THE TASTE was originally to guide in the selection of food;
but this sense has become so depraved by condiments and the force of habit
that it would be a difficult task to tell what are one's natural tastes.

3. SMELL. [Footnote: The sense of smell is so intimately connected with
that of taste that we often fail to distinguish between them. Garlic,
vanilla, coffee and various spices, which seem to have such distinct
taste, have really a powerful odor, but a feeble flavor.]

DESCRIPTION.--The nose, the seat of the sense of smell, is composed of
cartilage covered with muscles and skin, and joined to the skull by small
bones. The nostrils open at the back into the pharynx, and are lined by a
continuation of the mucous membrane of the throat. The olfactory nerves
(first pair, Fig. 55) enter through a sieve-like, bony plate at the roof
of the nose, and are distributed over the inner surface of the two
olfactory chambers. (See p. 346.) The object to be smelled need not touch
the nose, but tiny particles borne on the air enter the nasal passages.
[Footnote: Three quarters of a grain of musk placed in a room will cause a
powerful smell for a considerable length of time without any sensible
diminution in weight, and the box in which musk has been placed retains
the perfume for almost an indefinite period. Haller relates that some
papers which had been perfumed by a grain of ambergris, were still very
odoriferous after a lapse of forty years. Odors are transported by the air
to a considerable distance. A dog recognizes his master's approach by
smell even when he is far away; and we are assured by navigators that the
winds bring the delicious odors of the balmy forests of Ceylon to a
distance of ten leagues from the coast. Even after making due allowance
for the effects of the imagination, it is certain that odors act as an
excitant on the brain, which may be dangerous when long continued. They
are especially dreaded by the Roman women. It is well known that in
ancient times the women of Rome indulged in a most immoderate use of baths
and perfumes; but those of our times have nothing in common with them in
this respect; and the words of a lady are quoted, who said on admiring an
artificial rose, "It is all the more beautiful that it has no smell." We
are warned by the proverb not to discuss colors or tastes, and we may add
odors also. Men and nations differ singularly in this respect. The
Laplander and the Esquimaux find the smell of fish oil delicious. Wrangel
says his compatriots, the Russians, are very fond of the odor of pickled
cabbage, which forms an important part of their food; and asafœtida, it is
said, is used as a condiment in Persia, and, in spite of its name, there
are persons who do not find its odor disagreeable any more than that of
valerian.--_Wonders of the Human body_.]

FIG. 59.

[Illustration: A, b, c, d, _interior of the nose, which is lined by a
mucous membrane;_ n, _the nose;_ e, _the wing of the nose;_
q, _the nose bones;_ o, _the upper lip;_ g, _section of the
upper jaw-bone;_ h, _the upper part of the mouth, or hard palate;_
m, _frontal bone of the skull;_ k, _the ganglion or bulb of the
olfactory nerve in the skull, from which are seen the branches of the
nerve passing in all directions._]

THE USES of the sense of smell are to guide us in the choice of our food,
and to warn us against bad air, and unhealthy localities. (See p. 348.)

4. HEARING.

DESCRIPTION.--The ear is divided into the _external_, _middle_,
and _internal_ ear.

1. _The External Ear_ is a sheet of cartilage curiously folded for
catching sound. The auditory canal, _B_, or tube of this ear trumpet,
is about an inch long. Across the lower end is stretched _the membrane
of the tympanum_ or drum, which is kept soft by a fluid wax.

FIG. 60.

[Illustration: _The Ear._]

2. _The Middle Ear_ is a cavity, at the bottom of which is the
Eustachian tube, _G_, leading to the mouth. Across this chamber hangs
a chain of three singular little bones, _C_, named from their shape
the _hammer_, the _anvil_, and the _stirrup_. All together
these tiny bones weigh only a few grains, yet they are covered by a
periosteum, are supplied with blood vessels, and they articulate with
perfect joints (one a ball-and-socket, the other a hinge), having synovial
membranes, cartilages, ligaments, and muscles.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.