The Catholic World
Chapter 91 : The effects of a gentle stimulus we may expect to be very different, since we know that

The effects of a gentle stimulus we may expect to be very different, since we know that a feeble electric current stimulates the heart's action. The nature of the stimulus is always the same, no matter on what occasion it arises. It may arise from a dash of cold water on the face--as we see in the revival of the heart's action when we throw water on the face of a fainting person. It may arise from inhaling an irritant odor. It may arise from the pleasurable sight of a dear friend, or the thrill of delight at the new birth of an idea. In every case the brain is excited, either through an impression on a sensitive nerve, or through the impulses of thought; and the sensibility thus called into action necessarily discharges itself through one or more of the easiest channels; and among the easiest is that of the pneumogastric nerve. But the heart thus acted on in turn reacts. Its increased energy throws more blood into the brain, which draws its sustaining power from the blood.

Experimentalists have discovered another luminous fact connected with this influence of the brain upon the heart, namely, that although a current of a certain intensity (varying of course with the nature of the organism) will infallibly arrest the heart, if applied at once, yet if we begin with a feeble current and go on gradually increasing its intensity, we may at last surpa.s.s the degree which would have produced instantaneous arrest, and yet the heart will continue to beat energetically.

The effect of repet.i.tion in diminis.h.i.+ng a stimulus is here very noticeable. It will serve to explain why, according to the traditions of familiar experience, we are careful to break the announcement of disastrous news, by intimating something much less calamitous, wherewith to produce the first shock, and then, when the heart has withstood that, we hope it may have energy to meet the more agitating emotions. The same fact will also serve, partly, to explain why from repet.i.tion the effect of smoking is no longer as it is at first to produce paleness, sweating, and sickness. The heart ceases to be sensibly affected by the stimulus.

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Returning to the effects of a gentle stimulus, we can read therein the rationale of change of scene, especially of foreign travel, in restoring the exhausted energies. The gentle excitement of novel and pleasurable sights is not, as people generally suppose, merely a mental stimulus--a pleasure which pa.s.ses away without a physical influence; on the contrary, it is inseparably connected with an increased activity of the circulation, and _this_ brings with it an increased activity of all the processes of waste and repair. If the excitement and fatigue be not too great, even the sickly traveller finds himself stronger and happier, in spite of bad food, irregular hours, and many other conditions which at home would have enfeebled him. I have heard a very distinguished physician (Sir Henry Holland) say that such is his conviction of the beneficial influence of even slight nervous stimulus on the nutritive processes, that when the patient cannot have change of scene, change of room is of some advantage--nay, even change of furniture, if there cannot be change of room!

To those who have thoroughly grasped the principle of the indissoluble conjunction of nutrition and sensation, such effects are obvious deductions. They point to the great importance of pleasure as an element of effective life. They lead to the question whether much of the superior health of youth is not due to the greater amount of pleasurable excitement which life affords to young minds.

Certain it is that much of the marvellous activity of some old men, especially of men engaged in politics or in interesting professions, may be a.s.signed to the greater stimulus given to their bodily functions by the pleasurable excitement of their minds. Men who vegetate sink prematurely into old age. The fervid wheels of life revolve upon excitement. If the excitement be too intense, the wheels take fire; but if the mental stimulus be simply pleasurable, it is eminently beneficial.

Every impression reacts on the circulation, a slight impression producing a slight acceleration, a powerful impression, producing an arrest more or less prolonged. The "shock" of a wound and the "pain"

of an operation cause faintness, sometimes death. Indeed, it is useful to know that many severe operations are dangerous only because of the shock or pain, and can be performed with impunity if the patient first be rendered insensible by chloroform. On the other hand, the mere irritation of a nerve so as to produce severe pain will produce syncope or death in an animal which is very feeble or exhausted. It is possible to crush the whole of the upper part of the spinal chord (the _medulla oblongata_) without arresting the action of the heart, if the animal has been rendered insensible by chloroform; whereas without such precautions a very slight irritation of the medulla suffices to arrest the heart.

A moment's reflection will disclose the reason of the remarkable differences observed in human beings in the matter of sensitiveness.

The stupid are stupid, not simply because their nervous development is below the average, but also because the connection between the two great central organs, brain and heart, is comparatively languid; the pneumogastric is not in them a ready channel for the discharge of nervous excitement. The sensitive are sensitive because in them the connection is rapid and easy. All nervous excitement must discharge itself through one or more channels; but _what_ channels, will depend on the native and acquired tendencies of the organism. In highly sensitive animals a mere p.r.i.c.k on the skin can be proved to affect the beating of the heart; but you may lacerate a reptile without sensibly affecting its pulse. In like manner, a pleasurable sight or a suggestive thought will quicken the pulse of an intelligent man, whereas his stupid brother may be the spectator of festal or solemn scenes and the auditor of n.o.ble eloquence with scarcely a change.

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The highly sensitive organism is one in which the reactions of sensibility on the circulation, and of the circulation on the sensibility, are most direct and rapid. This is often the source of weakness and inefficiency--as we see in certain feminine natures of both s.e.xes, wherein the excessive sensitiveness does not lie in an unusual development of the nervous centres, but in an unusual development of the direct connection between brain and heart. There are men and women of powerful brains in whom this rapid transmission of sensation to the heart is not observable; the nervous force discharges itself through other channels. There are men and women of small brains in whom "the irritability" is so great that almost every sensation transmits its agitating influence to the heart.

And now we are in a condition to appreciate the truth which was confusedly expressed in the ancient doctrine respecting the heart as the great emotional organ. It still lives in our ordinary speech, but has long been banished from the text-books of physiology, though it is not, in my opinion, a whit more unscientific than the modern doctrine respecting the brain (meaning the cerebral hemispheres) as the exclusive organ of sensation. That the heart, as a muscle, is not endowed with the property of sensibility--a property exclusively possessed by ganglionic tissue--we all admit. But the heart, as the central organ of the circulation, is so indissolubly connected with every manifestation of sensibility, and is so delicately susceptible to all emotional agitations, that we may not improperly regard it as the ancients regarded it, in the light of the chief centre of feeling; for the ancients had no conception of the heart as an organ specially endowed with sensibility--they only thought of it as the chief agent of the sensitive soul. And is not this the conception we moderns form of the brain? We do not imagine the cerebral ma.s.s, as a mere ma.s.s, and unrelated to the rest of the organism, to have in itself sensibility; but we conceive it as the centre of a great system, dependent for its activity on a thousand influences, sensitive because sensibility is the form of life peculiar to it, but living only in virtue of the vital activities of the whole organism. Thus the heart, because its action is momently involved in every emotion, and because every emotion reacts upon it, may, as truly as the brain, be called the great emotional centre. Neither brain nor heart can claim that t.i.tle exclusively. They may claim it together.

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[Transcriber: Read this section with a fixed pitch font so the two columns are correctly aligned.]

From The Month.

THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS.

BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D.

[Concluded.]

--4.

SOUL.

But hark! upon my sense Comes a fierce hubbub, which would make me fear, Could I be frighted.

ANGEL.

We are now arrived Close on the judgment-court; that sullen howl Is from the demons who a.s.semble there.

It is the middle region, where of old Satan appeared among the sons of G.o.d, To cast his jibes and scoffs at holy Job.

So now his legions throng the vestibule, Hungry and wild, to claim their property, And gather souls for h.e.l.l. Hist to their cry.

SOUL.

How sour and how uncouth a dissonance!

DEMONS.

Low-born clods Of brute earth, They aspire To become G.o.ds, By a new birth, And an extra grace, And a score of merits, As if ought Could stand in place Of the high thought, And the glance of fire Of the great spirits, The powers blest, The lords by right, The primal owners Of the proud dwelling And realm of light, Dispossessed, Aside thrust, Chucked down, By the sheer might Of a despot's will, Of a tyrant's frown, Who after expelling Their hosts, gave, Triumphant still, And still unjust, Each forfeit crown To psalm-droners And canting groaners, To every slave, And pious cheat, And crawling knave, Who licked the dust Under his feet.

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ANGEL.

It is the restless panting of their being; Like beasts of prey, who, caged within their bars, In a deep hideous purring have their life, And an incessant pacing to and fro.

DEMONS.

The mind bold And independent, The purpose free, So we are told, Must not think To have the ascendant, What's a saint?

One whose breath Doth the air taint Before his death; A bundle of bones, Which fools adore, Ha! ha!

When life is o'er, Which rattle and stink, E'en in the flesh. We cry his pardon!

No flesh hath he; Ha! ha! For it hath died, 'Tis crucified Day by day, Afresh, afresh, Ha! ha!

That holy clay, Ha! ha!

And such fudge, As priestlings prate, Is his guerdon Before the judge, And pleads and atones For spite and grudge, And bigot mood, And envy and hate And greed of blood.

SOUL.

How impotent they are! and yet on earth They have repute for wondrous power and skill; And books describe, how that the very face Of th' evil one, if seen, would have a force To freeze the very blood, and choke the life Of him who saw it.

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ANGEL.

In thy trial state Thou hadst a traitor nestling close at home, Connatural, who with the powers of h.e.l.l Was leagued, and of thy senses kept the keys, And to that deadliest foe unlocked thy heart.

And therefore is it, in respect of man, Those fallen ones show so majestical.

But, when some child of grace, angel or saint, Pure and upright in his integrity Of nature, meets the demons on their raid, They scud away as cowards from the fight.

Nay, oft hath holy hermit in his cell, Not yet disburdened of mortality, Mocked at their threats and warlike overtures; Or, dying, when they swarmed like flies, around, Defied them, and departed to his judge.

DEMONS.

Virtue and vice, A knave's pretence.

'Tis all the same; Ha! ha! Dread of h.e.l.l-fire, Of the venomous flame, A coward's plea.

Give him his price, Saint though he be, Ha! ha!

From shrewd good sense He'll slave for hire; Ha! ha! And does but aspire To the heaven above With sordid aim, Not from love. Ha! ha!

SOUL.

I see not those false spirits; shall I see My dearest Master, when I reach his throne?