Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1874 — The Nerves---Rest and Quiet for the Sick. [ARTICLE]

The Nerves---Rest and Quiet for the Sick.

Do vou know hc&v an electric cable is made, which is to pass under the ocean and carry a message from one continent to another? If there is but one wire it is in the center of the cable, the wire being clothed with a thick coating of gutta-percha, which is also covered with a coat of mail. There are three parts to the nervous system: the brain, which is the head center of the system; the spinal cord, which is the trunk; and the nerves themselves, which are the telegraph wires along which all sensations are communicated to the brain. Each of these nerves pervading the human frame is itself a bundle of fibers, and each fiber consists of three parts: the cover, like the coat of mail to the telegraph cable; a case like the gutta-percha of the cable, and a minute central filament, or thread, along which it is supposed the nervous current, as the electricity in the cable, passes. There is such an analogy between the electrical telegraphic apparatus and the nervous action that we may not be afraid to believe the mysterious agency which we call magnetism and electricity, and of which we know only its effects and nothing whatever of its substance, is also the agency by which the Creator has pervaded the nervous system, made it the telegraphic apparatus for the transmission of intelligence from the outer world, through the senses, to the brain, and then, by that link, of which no human philosophy has yet detected a sign, to the will, which the sev; eral muscles of the body instinctively obey. So pervading are these fibers, and so minute in their ramifications, that 3,000 c i them occupy but an inch of space. They are more delicate and susceptible than the finest spider’s web that a breath of air disturbs. Light, sound, odors, or the softest touch—yes, thought itself—thrills these nerves and pours a tide of sensation into the great reservoir —the brain. In some Conditions of the body and the mind this nerve current is far more sensitive than at others, just as the electrical current flows more freely in one state of the atmosphere than another. We are always nervous, if not in paralysis. Especially when we are in anxiety, trouble or sickness the nervous system is peculiarly sensitive; every little thing sets us into a tremor; sleep refuses to come when we want it most, and each one of these million strings is athrill with sensibility. Sometimes we cannot bear the chair in which we sit or the couch on which we lie to be touched. We fret easily, refuse to be reasoned with, become " very" childish, petulant and exaeting. At such times the patient tries the patience of nurses, though the nurses are Saints. Yet for all that the sick must be undisturbed. Peace is their salvation. And the highest art of the physician and the friend is to keep the patient quiet, that nature, gently aided by the skill of science and the ministries of love, may work a cure.— “ Irenans," in N. Y. Observer.