Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1879 — Why do we Scratch our Heads. [ARTICLE]

Why do we Scratch our Heads.

Nearly every person has some means of stimulating the mental recollection, and bringing to mind something that memory had almost lost. There are two nerves; known as the fifth pair, which are distributed to tbe skin of the head, and are closely connected with the heart and vessels, and by stimulating their branches the circulation may be quickened. It Is a curious fact that people of all nations are accustomed, when in any difficulty, to stimulate one or another branch or tbe fifth nerve, and quicken their mental progress. Thus some persons,' when puzzled, scratch their heads; other rub their foreheads, and others stroke or pull their beards, thus stimulating the occipital, frontal or mental branches of those nerves. ■« ■ » f ' A little girl in the infant class ofja Sunday School thoroughly appreciated the difference being good from choice and from necessity. At tbe -dose cf school one day, the teaches remarked. “Beckie, dew, yon have been a very good little glri to-day.” 1 Yes’m, I couldn’t help being good, I got a ’riff neck,” theyouthful Beckie replied with perfect seriousness. A good, square kick will sometimes help a man frirther along in this world toward independence and prosperity than a doeetr pulls by the hand.—Oil City Derrick.