Object Lessons on the Human Body Part 18

Where do the second pair go?--"To the eyes."

What are the second pair called?--"The nerves of sight."

Which move the muscles of the eyes?--"The third, fourth, and sixth pairs."

Where do the fifth pair go?--"To the forehead, eyes, nose, ears, tongue, teeth, and different parts of the face."

The seventh pair?--"To the different parts of the face."

The eighth pair?--"To the inner ear."

What are the eighth pair called?--"The nerves of hearing."

Where do the ninth pair go?--"To the mouth, tongue, and throat."

Where do the twelfth pair go?--"To the tongue."

Where do the eleventh pair go?--"To the neck."

Where do the tenth pair go?--"To the neck, throat, lungs, stomach, and different parts of the body."

What happens if a nerve be destroyed?--"It cannot carry messages to the brain."

What happens if a nerve be pressed upon too long?--"It cannot carry messages to the brain."

What is necessary if you would have a strong, healthy brain?--"My brain must be used; my brain must be rested; my brain must be supplied with pure blood."

How must you use your brain?--"In thinking and studying."

How may the brain be rested?--"By sleep."

In what other way may the brain be rested?--"By thinking of something different from that which made it tired."

What two brain-poisons have you learned about?--"Alcohol and tobacco."[4]

With what may you show the harm done by alcohol to the gray part of the brain?--"With alcohol and the white of an egg."

How could you show it with these?--"I would pour the alcohol upon the white of the egg."

What would then happen?--"The white of the egg would harden as if it had been boiled."

What is in the white of an egg?--"Water and alb.u.men."

Where else may we find alb.u.men?--"In some seeds, and in the gray part of the brain and the nerves."

What harm does alcohol do to the nerves?--"It takes away their moisture and hardens them."

What harm does this do to them?--"It paralyzes them, or makes them lose their power."

What happens when nerves are paralyzed?--"They lose their power over the muscles; they are unfit to carry messages to and from the brain."

What harm does alcohol do to the gray part of the brain?--"It hardens it, as it hardens the white of an egg."

What harm does this do to the brain?--"It paralyzes it, or makes it lose its power."

What then happens?--"It cannot properly do its work of thinking, and cannot control the nerves."

What disease is sometimes caused by this hardening of the brain by alcohol?--"Paralysis, which often ends in death."

What harm does alcohol do to the blood-vessels of the brain?--"It fills them with impure blood."

What disease is caused by the blood-vessels of the brain being filled with impure blood?--"Congestion of the brain, or apoplexy, which ends in death."

What else frequently happens to those who drink alcoholic liquors?--"They become crazy, or insane."

If you wish to have a strong, healthy brain, what should you do about these liquors?--

"Never put them into my mouth, To steal away my brains."

Tell of what dreadful disease people die who are bitten by a mad dog.--"Of hydrophobia."

Of what dreadful disease do people sometimes die who are bitten by the serpent in alcoholic liquors?--"Of delirium tremens."

Which is the more dreadful, hydrophobia or delirium tremens?--"One is as dreadful as the other."

How can you be sure never to have delirium tremens?--"By drinking nothing which has alcohol in it."

Will a little beer or wine hurt you?--"Yes, it may make me love the taste of alcohol."

What harm is there in loving the taste of alcohol?--"I may love it so much as to become a drunkard."

Tell once more how you should treat alcoholic liquors.--"I should never drink a drop of them."

[4] See Appendices.

ALCOHOL.

THE STORY ABOUT ALCOHOL.

Several hundred years ago many people were trying to discover something that would keep them young and strong, and prevent them from dying. It is said by some that a man named Paracelsus, in making experiments, discovered _alcohol_. He called it "the water of life," and boasted that he would never be weak and never die; so he went on drinking alcoholic liquors until at last he died in a drunken fit.

What is this alcohol which has done and is doing so much mischief in the world? I will show you some. What does it look like?--"Water." Yes; and if you were to smell it you would say it has a somewhat pleasant odor; if you were to taste it, that it has a hot, biting taste, _i.e._, is pungent. If you put a lighted match to it you would notice that it burns easily, and with a flame, and may therefore be said to be combustible and inflammable.

What does it come from? Is it one of the drinks G.o.d has given us? Some of the cla.s.s think it is; we will try to learn whether this answer is correct or not. If we study about it very carefully we shall discover that it is not a natural drink, that it is not found except where it has been made from decayed or rotten fruits, grains, or vegetables.

If you take some apples, and squeeze the juice out of them, you will find it sweet and pleasant; let that juice stand for several days and what will happen to it?--"It will get bad." Yes; or, as grown people say, it will _work_ or _ferment_; that is, the sugary part of the juice will be separated into a kind of gas and a liquid. The gas is called _carbonic acid gas_; the liquid is _alcohol_. Both the gas and the liquid are poisonous.