OUR TELEPHONE SYSTEM

ERCY: Ting-a-ling! There’s the telephone bell. How strange it seems to talk to people, and hear them talk, when they are miles away!

Mother: But the most wonderful telephone in the world is found in the house we live in.

Helen: Why, mother, you don’t mean to say we have wires all through our bodies, do you?

Mother: Not wires, but something that answers the same purpose, only it is far more perfect. You know the brain is the master of the house, and there are hundreds of muscles waiting to do what he bids them. But the brain is upstairs, safe in his own strong little room. How can he tell the fingers how to work, and the feet where to walk?

Amy: Please tell us, mother. I’m sure I don’t know.

Mother: Well, instead of wires we have thousands of little lines called nerves, reaching from the brain to every part of the body. They are made of matter like that in the brain, and they are so close together that you can touch no place on your body, even with the point of a pin, without touching a nerve. Messages are sent over them to the brain, and back again to the muscles. With the nerves we feel. We call it the sense of touch.

We might call the brain the “central office,” from which messages are sent, and where they come back. In the city you have seen many wires stretched on poles. Sometimes they are bound up together and covered over, making a cable like a big rope. You remember I told you there is a spinal cord or marrow running through your backbone. This is made up of many nerves, as the cable is made of many wires. There are sixty-two branch lines coiled up in it. By looking at the bottom part of the picture of the brain you will see where this large cable enters the central office. Really, the top part of the cord is a little brain itself, with a long name, which we will not trouble now to learn.

The nerves.

Elmer: If all the nerves come from the backbone, how do any get to the face?

Mother: There are some little holes in the skull, and through these twenty-four branch lines pass, carrying the nerves all over the face and head. One pair find their way to the nose, and they tell the master of the house how things smell. Another pair reach to the eyes, and tell him how things look. They are nerves of sight. There are three pairs to tell the muscles of the eye how to move. One pair passes to the ears, and are called nerves of hearing. The others are scattered all over the face, passing to the teeth, tongue, and throat, and even to other parts of the body. This picture shows the brain as the main office, the cord or cable in the back-bone, and how the branches extend to all parts of the body. Still there are thousands of smaller lines which can not be seen at all.

Helen: And what sends the messages to and from the brain over the nerves, mother?

Mother: The power which sends them is called “nerve force,” though what it is even the wisest men do not know. We can stop it by pressing on the nerves, just as you can stop the current of the telegraph. We sometimes say that our leg or arm is “asleep.” If we try to move, it gives us pain, or it may be we can not move at all. One nerve runs along the back side of the arm over the elbow. If we hit the elbow, it makes the arm and hand feel numb. We say the “funny bone,” or the “crazy bone,” is hurt, but it is not the bone at all, but the nerve.

Amy: I heard a lady who is ill say she wished she had no nerves. Why do we have them?

Mother: I think we have already learned how useful they are to carry messages for us. We would be quite helpless without them, for the brain sends word over them every time we move any part of the body. Another reason is they watch for our welfare. If we are cut or burned, it gives us pain. We don’t like the pain, so we are more careful when we use sharp tools or go near the fire.

“Tell your mother about it.”

If you touch the hot stove, you jerk away your hand. “I’m burnt,” the finger sends word to the brain. The brain sends back the message, “Get off the stove, quick.” And to the nerves of the eye it says, “See if it is blistered.” To the face muscles, “Make up a wry face to show how badly it hurts.” To the feet and hands, “Get some cold water to put the burned finger in.” To the tongue, “Tell your mother about it.” All these messages are sent at the rate of one hundred feet a second, and the eye, face, hands, feet, and tongue all feel sorry for the burnt finger, and do all they can to help it.

Every part of the body, the bones, muscles, stomach, heart, and lungs, has these useful little nerves to let the master know when anything is wrong with them.

Elmer: Do the nerves ever get sick, mother?

Mother: Oh, yes, very often! Sometimes they are so ill that no message can pass over them to the brain. Then we say the person is paralyzed. A lady had her limbs paralyzed. She could not walk, or move her feet at all. One day she took a foot bath. She could not tell whether the water was cold or hot, and soon the nurse found the skin on her feet blistered, because the water was too warm. The nerves were dead, and she felt no pain at all. Pain is hard to bear, but if there were no pain, the house we live in would soon be ruined. It tells us when danger is near, and because we do not like the pain, we take care of the body. The nerves are more wonderful than any telephone or telegraph, and when you get older, you must learn all you can about them.

Helen: The brain must have a lot of work looking after the nerves and sending so many messages over them. I don’t see how it can think of anything else.

Mother: Perhaps I can explain it to you. Suppose there is a family who have much to do. The father does the hardest work of all. When his wife sees how much he has to do, she tries to help him all she can, so she does many things without saying anything to her husband about it. They have one son, a strong, upright young man, and he takes part of the work, because he wishes to help his parents. We will call the large brain the father, because it does so much of our thinking. As you say, Helen, if he looked after all parts of the body, there would be but little time for study and helping other people. Besides, he falls asleep sometimes, so the little brain, which we will call his wife, takes the work that must be done all the time, as good wives and mothers do, such as keeping the heart beating, the lungs breathing, and other parts of the body at work which can not stop to rest. Then there is the spinal cord, which we will call the son, and he takes charge of the feet and hands when they have common kinds of work to do. When you went to school this morning, I saw you reading a book while you walked. Your brain did not send word to each muscle what to do every time you took a step, but you walked “without thinking,” as we say. The spinal cord took charge of your feet, so we know it can do an easy kind of thinking. When you were learning to skate, Percy, you kept thinking all the time how to move your feet and what to do to keep from falling. But after you had learned how, Father Brain gave his son, Spinal Cord, charge of you, and he thinks of something else most of the time while you skate. It is the same with anything we have learned to do well by doing it over and over, such as playing the piano, riding a bicycle, and many other things we keep doing again and again.

Percy: Does alcohol harm the nerves, mother?

Mother: Yes, indeed. Alcohol seems to like the nerves better than any other part of the body, and it does them more harm than any other, except the brain. When alcohol touches a nerve, it dries it up and makes it hard, as though it had been burned. It causes that dreadful disease, paralysis, of which I have told you. The nerves get so stupid and sleepy they do not know what the brain says to them. They can not tell the muscles what to do, and this is why a drunken man staggers. A drunkard has trembling hands, because the poison has made his nerves sick. Sometimes those wonderful nerves of the eye and ear tell him lies, and he believes what they say. Sometimes the poor nerves and brain are so nearly dead that the man falls down, and people say he is “dead drunk.”

“The little boy is forming a bad habit.”

Elmer: I have heard people say tobacco was good for the nerves, that it made them feel rested, and they could think better.

Mother: Tobacco is a poison, and is as hurtful to the nerves as alcohol. One who uses it thinks he is rested, but the reason he feels so is because the poison has put his nerves to sleep. Tobacco also creates an appetite for strong drinks. It is very bad for boys to use tobacco in any way.

Amy: What should we do to keep the nerves well?

Mother: Give them good food, plenty of fresh air, and no poisons of any kind. They must also have rest to keep them strong. It helps the nerves to be happy and cheerful. The little boy in this picture is forming a bad habit, which will not only make him unhappy but unhealthy. Hateful, unpleasant thoughts make poisons in the body and cause sickness in the brain and nerves. People sometimes drop dead by becoming very angry. “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Yes, it is much better than any medicine men can make. Children should form the habit of being happy and hopeful. The brain and nerves will form good or bad habits, and the master of the body-house should use all his power to have them good instead of bad. Every evil habit leaves a scar on the brain.