Dorsum

“ Lying prostrate, with flaccid limbs, with head sunk back on the limp neck, motionless and still, at first sight, it seems quite dead and gone. But a gentle heaving of the body, a rise and a fall every few seconds, tells you that it still breathes; and a finger placed on the chest may feel the quick throb of the still beating heart. ”

“ As this Disease seems to arise immediately from a supine position of the Body in sleep, we should take care to prevent it before we fall asleep, by composing the Body on either Side. The sagacious Hoffman observes, that the safest posture in sleep, is on either Side, with the Head rais’d, and the Limbs bent inwards to the trunk of the Body43. ”

“ We are not conscious of the contraction of the diaphragm; we are conscious of the position of the walls of the chest and abdomen; the messages the mind receives relating to the amount of air in the bellows at our disposal come from sensations derived from the structures forming the wall of the chest and abdomen, viz. the position of the ribs, their degree of elevation and forward protrusion combined with the feeling that the ribs are falling back into the position of rest ”

“ Next the heart in independent action is the muscle called the midriff or diaphragm; and, as the diaphragm is a muscle of inspiration, the respiratory function plays second to the circulatory, and the two great functions of life are, in sleep, faithfully performed. In sleep of illness bordering on sleep of death, how intently we watch for the merest trace of breath, and augur that, if but a feather be moved by it or a mirror dimmed by it, there is yet life! ”

“ Instead of standing out at a considerable angle from the spine, and thus affording free scope for the action of the heart and lungs, which are the organs essential to existence, the chest falls downwards, pressing on the abdominal cavity, the ends of the ribs are brought into closer approxi­mation, the sternum or chest-bone is forced inwards, and the cavity of the chest considerably diminished. ”

“ Dorsal Breathing.—Assume standing position with active chest; place the fingers at the back on dorsal muscles, and thumbs on the side; take a full breath, trying to expand the muscles under your fingers as much as you can. Rightly done, the abdominal and costal muscles, and the ribs, will also expand; the chest, if not already active, will rise; the shoulders will remain quiet. In giving out the breath, let the chest be the last to sink. This is the way of breathing in every healthy man, woman, and child. ”

“ To account for the reason why the brain is less freely fed with blood in sleep, it has been surmised that the vessels, the arteries, which feed the brain, and which for contractile purposes are supplied with nerves from the organic nervous system, are, under their nervous influence, made to close so that a portion at least of the blood which enters through them is cut off on going to sleep. ”

“ This movement of the whole limb is what we think of when the joint's nerves are excited in that way; and its place is so much more important than the joint's place that our sense of the latter is taken up, so to speak, into our perception of the former, and the sensation of the movement seems to diffuse itself into our very fingers and toes. But by abstracting our attention from the suggestion of the entire extremity we can perfectly well perceive the same sensation as if it were concentrated in one spot. ”

“ I have given you quite pointedly and at length, hints on spine and sacrum which cover the territory below the diaphragm. In conclusion I will simply refer you to the chest, neck and brain, and say, "let your search light ever shine bright on the brain." On it we must depend for power. About all nerves do run through the neck and branch off to supply both above and below, to do their parts in animal life, to the heart, brain and sum total of man and beast. Search faithfully for cause of diseases in head, neck, chest, spine and pelvis ”

“ In a weakly state of the heart and blood-vessels, and in certain morbid conditions of the brain, the blood seems to gravitate to the back of the head, and to produce troublesome dreams. Persons who have contracted chests, and who have had pleurisy and retain adhesions of the lungs, do not sleep well on the back. ”

“ The head is the treasure-vault of all our thoughts, emotions, sensations, and pas­sions; the thorax contains the heart and lungs; the abdomen all the digestive and secretive organs; and even the orifices are all mysteriously furnished. ”

“ Frequent waking at night. He wakes earlier than usual. Doughy mouth, in the morning. Foul, bloody sputa, of the color of chocolate with milk. The pain at the sacrum is feebler, it seems to have spread over a larger space, rises a little towards the dorsal and lumbar muscles, and to the dorsal vertebræ. 140. The head, above the eyebrows, is still somewhat dull. Weakness in the finger-joints and wrists. The gland at the neck continues painful, with lancinations. Taste of blood in the throat. Flushes of heat. 145. The breathing is painful, as if there were a sore in the lumbar region. ”

“ When the digestive organs, filling the abdominal cavity, are large, and the lungs and brain small, the individual is lymphatic; he is fond of feeding, and averse to mental and muscular exertion. When the heart and lungs are large, and the brain and abdomen small, the individual is sanguine ”

“ The heart is a muscle, but it does not sleep, and the lungs are worked by muscles, and these do not sleep; and the viscera which triturate and digest food are moved by muscles, and these do not sleep; and the glands have an arrangement for the constant separation of fluids, and the glands do not sleep; and all these parts have certain nerves which do not sleep. ”

“ Although the organ called the brain is located in the head, and although that called the heart is in the abdomen, yet some sense of control over bodily motions curiously exists separately in the ganglions of different parts of the body. ”

“ As the formation of bone predominates upon the side exposed to the light or the nervous, so does that of muscle upon the shady or vascular side. The abdominal side of the animal is the muscular, just as the dorsal side is the osseous. Upon the thorax, abdomen, on the members which belong to the anterior region of the body, and on the face, the muscular layer is by far the most predominant. ”

“ Every one considers it as a medullary cord, extending from the head to the sacrum, sending in its course various ramifications to the neck, the thorax and the abdomen, following in its distributions a course analogous to those nerves of the spine, and deriving its origin from those nerves, according to some, and from those of the brain, according to others. ”

“ When any physician, doctor, or amulet-maker puts his fingers upon the top of the head, upon the occiput, upon the hands, upon the chest, upon the arms, upon the legs, he communicates (?) with the heart, for its vessels extend to every limb, wherefore it is called the starting-point of every limb. ”

“ As the breath leaves the body, care must be taken that the chest remains expanded, the waist-line alone shrinking by the use of the abdominal muscles, and the note should be finished with the mouth open and plenty of reserve breath. ”

“ A large cavity within the chest contains the lungs and heart. The cavity of the abdomen is filled with the liver, stomach, food tube, and other working parts.
The Plan of the Body.—All parts of the body are not the same. One part has one kind of work to do while another performs quite a different duty. The covering of the body is the skin. Beneath is the red meat called muscle. ”

“ The arm and the hand do not act unless we wish them to do so. Suppose it were the same with the heart. We should have to stay awake all the while to keep it going, because it would not act when we were asleep. The same is true of our breathing. We [Pg 108] breathe when we are asleep as well as when we are awake, because the breathing muscles work even when we do not think about them.
10. The stomach, the intestines, the blood-vessels, and many other organs within the body have this kind of muscles. The work of these self-acting muscles is very wonderful indeed. ”

“ In bed after bed I saw men of ours, very young men, who had been lopped of limbs a few hours ago or a few minutes, some of them unconscious, some of them strangely and terribly conscious, with a look in their eyes as though staring at the death which sat near to them, and edged nearer. ”

“ The disposition to sleep is indicated by a drowsiness pervading the whole system: the senses and muscles become languid; the head, unable to retain its erect position, bends towards the chest; the eye-lids close ”

“ Every part of the body, with some few exceptions, is crowded with nerves and blood-vessels. The nerves all come from the brain or spinal cord—the vessels from the heart. So that every part of the body is governed by two centres, the heart, and the brain or spinal cord. ”

“ It will be interesting to know from the physiological stand-point whether it is necessary for the development of the brain that the spinal column should be erect, whether it is necessary for the formation of the spinal column, that the stomach should retain a certain position, and to know also how far the fixture of the plants is an impediment to the development of any nervous system in them. ”

“ One of these, the first, characterised as natural, is communicated from the arteries to the veins by their anastomoses, and is primarily associated with the blood, the proper seat or home of which is the liver and veins. The second is the vital spirit, whose seat or dwelling-place is the heart and arteries. The third, the animal spirit, comparable to a ray of light, has its home in the brain and nerves. In each and all of these is the force—energeia—of the one spirit and light of God comprised. ”

“ A prick on the great toe traverses the whole length of the spinal axis with effects manifested in various organs—the muscles of the limb, the heart, the chest, the eyes, etc. The leg is withdrawn, the heart momently arrested, the eyes turned towards the source of irritation, the thoughts directed towards relief. ”

“ But certainly the brain and spinal cord, ceasing themselves to receive impressions, cease to communicate to the muscles they supply stimulus for motion, and the muscles under their control, with their nerves, therefore sleep. And so, to the extent that the acts of the brain and cord and their nerves are mental, and the acts or motions of the voluntary muscles are bodily acts, to that extent, in sleep, the intercourse between the mind and the body is suspended. ”

“ Each night a different part of my body was exercised. One night my head was made to move first as if nodding and it was continued about twenty times, then moved from side to side—then the soles of my feet were caused to massage each other. Another night I was caused to do deep breathing. I used to get into bed with a feeling of wonder as to what form they would take each night. ”

“ The older physiologists regarded sleep as due to the exhaustion of the nervous fluid; during sleep, they held, this fluid accumulates in the brain; and, when the brain and the other centres and nerves of the cerebro-spinal system are, to employ a common expression, recharged, the muscles are stimulated and the body awakes; the brain prepared to receive external impressions and to animate the muscles, and the muscles renovated and ready to be recalled into activity. ”

“ The Nerves which supply the organs of the head are either merely continuations or diverticula of the brain-substance, or proper nerves taking their origin from the brain, or receiving their constituent parts from the foremost part of the spinal chord. ”

“ The skin is [Pg 7] always more or less clothed with hair. The heart has a single left aortic arch, the blood is hot, and the heart and lungs are lodged in a special cavity separated from the abdomen by a muscular partition known as the diaphragm. ”

“ If the spinal cord is divided in the middle of the back, for example, the skin of the feet may be cut, or pinched, or burned, or wetted with vitriol, without any sensation of touch, or of pain, arising in consciousness. ”

“ The joints or the dorsal or back vertebræ are, notwithstanding, more close and compact than those of the loins; allowing of a wider range for bending and turning in the loins than the back.
12. The sternum and ribs move upward, to assist the chest in the expansion required for respiration; drawing the clavicles and the shoulders upwards in full inspiration, and tend to a contrary motion on expiration. Such movements also, characterise strong action and certain passion, and very apparent in a naked figure. ”

“ Another set of nerves proceed inwards, from the skin to the central part of the nervous system, and by their peculiar action give rise to various sensations, according as different influences or stimulations are brought to bear upon the skin at, or in the vicinity of, their peripheral extremities. Under ordinary circumstances, different stimulations of the surface of the body convey an influence inwards, which produces sensation, and give rise to an outwardly proceeding influence to the muscles, resulting in definite and appropriate motions. ”

“ But this time it was accompanied with a burning sensation at the pit of the stomach; and, instead of growing upon me with" the gradual pace of healthy slumber, and resolving me, as before, into air, it came with the intensity of a pang, and shot throbbing along the nerves to the extremities of my body. The sense of limitation — of the confinement of our senses within the bounds of our own flesh and blood — instantly fell away. ”