Category: Science - Biology

Fear

Before beginning the study of the nerve-centres I shall remind the reader of a few very simple facts, which, doubtless, he already knows, but which, recalled, will render more apparent the part taken by the body in the functions of the mind.

Chapters

11. CHAPTER XI

Leonardo da Vinci, in his celebrated treatise on painting, in speaking of the difference between laughing and weeping, says: 'In eyes, mouth, and cheeks there is no difference b...

4. CHAPTER IV

When we have drawn on a pair of very tight gloves, we feel, if we pay attention, a slight throbbing in the fingers, corresponding to the rhythm of the cardiac pulsations. This t...

8. CHAPTER VIII

The old physiologists believed that the mind of brutes only obeyed two stimuli--pain and pleasure, and that all processes of their organism had as aim to avoid the bad and procu...

2. CHAPTER II

We can scarcely picture the confusion in the mind of anyone studying the nerves of the face when, besides those destined to the organs of smell, sight, and hearing, he would not...

10. CHAPTER X

Those who have not carefully followed the history of scientific progress think that the theory of evolution is solely Darwin’s work. The same thing has happened as after a victo...

16. CHAPTER XVI

The most difficult thing in the study of man is to surprise him on the threshold of life, to meet him as he detaches himself from the tissues of the mother, in the guise of a ce...

6. CHAPTER VI

In all ages and by all peoples the heart has been looked upon as the centre of the passions, of feeling and of strength. Our word courage comes from 'cœur’--heart. Nearly two th...

3. CHAPTER III

An animal deprived of the brain is a machine which requires external stimuli in order to move. An uninjured animal is also a machine, but it differs from the other by that power...

5. CHAPTER V

Man has, on the average, four kilograms of blood, and this fluid flows incessantly in a system of tubes, in the centre of which the heart is situated. The arteries carrying the...

12. CHAPTER XII

The edifice of the human body may be compared by those studying its chemical processes to a vast manufactory of which every corner and every door bears the inscription, 'NO ADMI...

7. CHAPTER VII

Oppression on the chest has in it something so irresistible that the will cannot subdue it. A slight emotion, a little exertion, a loss of blood, or a fever is sufficient, nay,...

15. CHAPTER XV

Unhappy invalids who must seek shelter in the hospital, and drag themselves feebly through those long wards where quiet has reigned for centuries, only broken by the sobs and cr...

14. CHAPTER XIV

If we study the phenomena of sleep, we can easily imagine that there are links between the centres of the will and the muscles which may, in certain circumstances, be severed. W...

9. CHAPTER IX

The eye examines the human countenance with such rapidity and such accuracy that no one will ever succeed in giving in words a picture of the minute details and fugitive traits...

1. CHAPTER I

Before beginning the study of the nerve-centres I shall remind the reader of a few very simple facts, which, doubtless, he already knows, but which, recalled, will render more a...

13. CHAPTER XIII

The one who brings up a child represents its brain. Every ugly thing told to the child, every shock, every fright given him, will remain like minute splinters in the flesh, to t...