Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, November, 1880Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, November, 1880
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
As already shown, general sensibility, including in the term the
sense of touch and the muscular sense, is of prime importance in
equilibration, but it is unquestionable that the nerves of the other
senses carry to the nerve-centre impulses from the external parts
of the body which are necessary to the highest development of the
function. The partially ataxic man can walk with his eyes open,
although he does not feel the floor, because sight replaces touch.
The blind man, certainly, cannot balance himself so well as he whose
eyes are perfect. We all know that the sight of a yawning abyss or the
gazing upon whirling objects is prone to produce giddiness.
Some experiments made by the English physiologist Crum Browne show that
there must be guiding impulses which are connected with equilibration
besides those already discussed. The observer mentioned found that
if a blindfolded man lies on a table with a movable top placed upon
a central pivot, he can judge in regard to the movements lateral or
vertical, even if they be made so carefully and slowly that the man
is perfectly quiescent. The subject under experiment is almost always
able to decide correctly not only the direction of the motion, but also
the angle through which the motion has extended. It is possible that
the guiding impulses under these circumstances originate in all parts
of the body. Thus, when we lie with the head downward we are at once
sensible of a feeling of fulness or pressure due to the gravitation
of the blood and other liquids of the body toward the head. Position
undoubtedly affects the gravitation of liquids in all parts of the
body: the man whose forces are reduced by a low fever gets a congestion
of the back of the lungs if he lies too long upon his back. It may be
that this flow of fluids toward any unusually dependent part of the
body makes an impression upon the nerves of touch, which pass through
all parts of the organism, and that in this way peripheral impulses are
generated which reach the lower brain.
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