Infusoria

“ In a large number of species the prehension of food is preceded by another stage, the search for food, and in the case of living prey, by its capture. We shall not investigate these phenomena among all the Protozoa, but shall direct our attention especially to the ciliated Infusoria. Their habits are a remarkable study. If a drop of water containing Infusoria be placed under the microscope, organisms are seen swimming apidly about and traversing the liquid medium in which they are in every direction. Their movements are not simple ”

“ In examining delicate objects, such as large infusoria, which invariably commit suicide when pressure is applied, a good plan is to restrict their movements by placing a few threads of cotton-wool, well pulled out, in the live-box with the drop of water. ”

“ The singular phenomenon of spontaneous division may be witnessed by any one having patience to examine the creature long enough, isolated from its innumerable companions, under the microscope. The oblong body of the animal will soon be observed to contract at the middle, the compression becoming more and more marked. [104] The lower segment soon begins to show a few vibratile cils, thus indicating the place which will soon be a new mouth; the organ soon becomes more and more distinct, and now the Infusoria literally cuts itself into two parts. ”

“ He will swim so close as almost to graze the feeding ground, yet keep straight along without turning or pausing, as if it were not there. The next instant, he may run against some small particle which isn’t good to eat at all, and swallow it down forthwith. In fact, the infusorian simply swallows whatever happens to hit his mouth. ”

“ If it happens to be only a grain of dust or a fleck of shell, down it goes just the same; the infusorian doesn’t know the difference.
When the infusorian, swimming straight ahead, runs into some obstacle too large to swallow, it stops, backs off, turns a little to one side, and goes ahead again. But he never takes any pains to turn toward the side which will do the most good, or to notice whether he turns enough to do any good at all. He is just as likely, having run against the extreme end of some object, to turn exactly the wrong way, so that he hits it next time fairly in the middle. ”

“ An infusorium swims randomly about, determined in its course not by a perceived object to be pursued or escaped, but, apparently, by varying stimuli in its medium; and its acts unadjusted in any appreciable way to ends, lead it now into contact with some nutritive substance which it absorbs, and now into the neighbourhood of some creature by which it is swallowed and digested.... ”

“ It seemed more like a tremendous vibration that filled the space about me, that seemed to close in on me; and while I was not afraid—how could I have been with her in my arms? I felt, sort of dimly, a rushing wonder as to the aspect, the source, the nature, yes as though it may seem silly to you—the all-fired use and necessity of that unknown noise! I want you to feel that noise as I felt it—yes, felt it more than heard it—perhaps a combination of the two sensations. I seemed to both feel and hear somebody, something listening in the dark! ”

“ No sound, be it ever so shrill, cuts so sharply into the brain as this cursed cracking of whips; you feel the sting of the lash right inside your head; and it affects the brain in the same way as touch affects a sensitive plant, and for the same length of time. ”

“ If the cascade had still been pouring down from above I should have stood a better chance under cover of the sound. Everybody knows the peculiar effect that listening in the darkness has upon one. The muscles become rigid, the throat grows dry, an irresistible desire to swallow produces in the act a peculiar noise, and a strange kind of hypnotism suggests to the limbs that they cannot move. To this add a cold perspiration, born of the idea that there is a vast yawning pit beneath one, and a score of ears listening for the slightest sound near by, and you have my sensations within a little. ”

“ Hence the ideas of the apparent motions of objects are a complete circle of irritative ideas, which continue throughout the day.
Also during all our waking hours, there is a perpetual confused sound of various bodies, as of the wind in our rooms, the fire, distant conversations, mechanic business; this continued buzz, as we are seldom quite motionless, changes its loudness perpetually, like the sound of a bell; which rises and falls as long as it continues, and seems to pulsate on the ear. ”

“ We hear when the air between the sonant body and the organ of hearing suffers concussion, a vibration which spreads spherically and then forms waves and strikes upon the ears, just as the water in a reservoir forms wavy circles when a stone is thrown into it. Sleep is caused, they say, by the slackening of the tension in our senses, which affects the ruling part of the soul. ”

“ In sensation we hear sounds that are caused by objective bodies; thus a bell agitates the air and we hear it, but we may have a disturbance of the physiological function of the ear, due it may be to the influence of a drug or perhaps to a disease of the organ. Now, such a subjective impression or functioning of an organ of sense we call a feeling impression, and when we consider it to be objective we hallucinate or have an hallucination. ”

“ There is another limit to sensibility which is in a manner the opposite to the one just named. It is a [Pg 57] law of nervous stimulation that a continued activity of any structure results in less and less psychic result, and that when a stimulus is always at work it ceases in time to have any appreciable effect. The common illustration of this law is drawn from the region of sound. A constant noise, as of a mill, ceases to produce any conscious sensation. This fact, it is plain, may easily become the commencement of an illusion. ”

“ But this I aver, whatever the cause, upon such nights of storm, the sensoria of some men are crossed by such wild variety and succession of images, as amounts very nearly to the Walpurgis of a fever. It is not the mere noise—other noises won't do it. The air, to be sure, is thin, and blood-vessels expand, and perhaps the brain is pressed upon unduly. ”

“ We may fall into similar illusions respecting distance in auditory perception. A change of wind, an unusual stillness in the air, is quite sufficient to produce the sense that sounding objects are nearer than they actually are. The art of the ventriloquist manifestly aims at producing this kind of illusion. By imitating the dull effect of a distant voice, he is able to excite in the minds of his audience a powerful conviction that the sounds proceed from a distant point. ”

“ Any noise causes renewed pallor. A whistle, a cry, a sound of any kind, the bark of a dog, a sunbeam suddenly penetrating into the cage, the shadow of a swiftly passing cloud, the flight of a distant bird, each suffices to produce a rapid loss of colour in the ears, shortly followed by a more vivid flush. ”

“ In the same way, all the sonorous excitements which assail us, the creakings of machines, the sounds of nature, the words and cries of our fellows are produced by excitements of our acoustic nerve; it is in our brain that noise is produced, outside there reigns a dead silence. ”

“ The influence of resonance and pitch, echo and absorption of tones, i.e., the location of the sound, is of great importance. Finally, it must not be forgotten that people’s ability to hear varies with the weather. Colds reduce the power, and not a few people are influenced by temperature, atmospheric pressure, etc. These considerations show the degree in which auditory illusions can be of importance even in tests of their nature and existence. They show above all that the same object of comparison under the same circumstances must be used in every test. ”

“ After listening for a few moments, a distant, unearthly noise becomes faintly audible—a long, low, mysterious moaning, which never changes, which is felt on the ear as well as heard by it—a sound that might proceed from some incalculable distance, from some far invisible height—a sound so unlike anything that is heard on the upper ground, in the free air of heaven ”

“ I awoke with a sound in my ears like the never-ceasing surge and hiss of waters, a sound that waxed ever louder. Hearkening to this, I presently sought to move and wondered, vaguely uneasy, to find this impossible: I strove now to lift my right hand, found it fast held, tried my left and found it in like case, and so became conscious of something that gripped me about the throat, and ever my wonder and unease grew. ”

“ Auscultation reveals a bubbling, gurgling sound, as the air passes through the matter in the bronchi, with the click, to the air cells beyond. Percussion gives a dull sound or if there are large cavities, it is hollow, and auscultation elicits the amphoric sound, as of blowing into a bottle. ”

“ The noise and tumult, the confusion of forms and cries, fatigue all the senses; everything swims and flickers before our eyes; there is singing and ringing in our ears, till at length we are conscious of neither colour nor noise, scarcely even of the usually very penetrating odour. ”

“ One day she was telling the little girls—they make such a noise at tea, you know—'The more noise you make, the less jam you will have, and vice versâ.' And I thought they wouldn't know what 'vice versâ' meant: so I explained it to them. I said 'If you make an infinite noise, you'll get no jam: and if you make no noise, you'll get an infinite lot of jam.' But our excellent preceptress said that wasn't a good instance. ”

“ With these they make a dead hollow noise like the bellowing of beasts, mixed with sounds resembling thunder, having, it would seem, very correctly observed, that of all our senses hearing most confounds and disorders us, and that the feelings excited through it most quickly disturb, and most entirely overpower the understanding. ”

“ The effect of every shock will be renewed before it vanishes, and the recurrent impulses will link themselves together to a continuous musical sound.84 The pulses, on the contrary, which produce noise, are of irregular strength and recurrence. The action of noise upon the ear has been well compared to that of a flickering light upon the eye, both being painful through the sudden and abrupt changes which they impose upon their respective nerves. ”

“ We say the sound rolled on, the odor was wafted, the color was printed, our language and our thoughts implying that the sound, the odor, the color, are things, when in reality they are all mere sensations, answering to the touch of physical agents. All sensation is nerve-motion. Outer stimulus, applied to the nerves, causes contractions which, communicating with the brain, give the idea of color or taste or sound. ”

“ In the superficial expansion of the nerves of hearing, smell, taste, for example, it is not a point merely that is affected, but a number of continuous points, precisely, as in the superficial organ of touch; and if, therefore, the notion of extension in general, or of figure, which is limited extension, arose whenever a part of the nervous expansion was affected in any way, we should derive these notions as much from a taste, or a smell, or a sound, as from any of the configurations or affections of our organ of touch. ”

“ Now when a Person throws a Stone into Water, these Undulations or Waves are raised in the Fluid for some Distance, by the Force and Action of one Wave upon another. This is the Case with regard to Sound; only the Air being an elastic Fluid, these Undulations are more quick and brisk in their Motions than in Water. So much for Sound itself. Now for the Cause of this Sound, or of these Undulations.
These Undulations are caused by the Vibration of some elastic Body, which is put into Motion by a Stroke of another Body against it. ”

“ When the irritative sensual motions, or ideas, belonging to one sense are increased or diminished, the irritative sensual motions, or ideas, of the other senses are liable to become disturbed by their general catenations; whence occur noises in the ears, bad tastes in the mouth, bad odours, and numbness or tingling of the limbs, as a greater or less number of senses are affected. ”

“ A constant pressure on the tympanum excites no sound; only a rhythmic alternation of pressures will excite the sensation. A constant temperature is not felt;322 only changes in temperature. If Light and Sound were as uniform as the circulation of the blood, or the pressure of the atmosphere, we should be seldom conscious of the existence of these stimuli. ”

“ Sound builds; sound destroys; and invisible sound-vibrations affect concrete matter. For all sounds produce forms—the forms that correspond to them, as you shall now see. Within every form lies the silent sound that first called it into view—into visible shape—into being. Forms, shapes, bodies are the vibratory activities of sound made visible."
"My goodness!" exclaimed Spinrobin, who was listening like a man in a dream, but who caught the violence of the clergyman's idea none the less. ”

“ This origin of the auditory nerve explains, then, the great disturbance which the power of thinking suffers from sound, on account of which thinking men, and in general all people of much intellect, are without exception absolutely incapable of enduring any noise. ”

“ In the inner chamber of the ear physical movements are in some wholly inscrutable manner translated into sensations of sound, and the confused aggregation of waves and ripples in the air, beating against the tympanic membrane there, takes effect in producing impulses which travel up the auditory nerve and expend their energy finally in the creation of sensations of melody and tune, which arouse emotions, revive memories, and stir sometimes the deepest feelings of our minds. ”

“ Certain vibrations, acting through the visual apparatus, cause within the brain those motions which are followed by the sensations of light and color;—other vibrations, acting upon the auditory mechanism, give rise to the sensation of sound;—other vibrations, setting up changes in specialized tissue, produce sensations of taste, smell, touch. All our knowledge is derived and developed, directly or indirectly, from physical sensation,—from touch. ”