we eat can not be used, and some parts of the body are wearing out all
the time. If the waste stayed inside, we should become ill. In the skin
there are thousands and millions of little tubes called _pores_, which
help carry away the waste. If you become very warm, you say you are
“sweating,” or per-spir´ing; that is, drops of water come out all over
your body. They come through the pores, or little holes in the skin.
But we sweat, or perspire, all the time, whether we can see it or not.
If the pores of the skin were stopped up, a person would soon die. If
the skin is very dirty, the sweat can not get out, and it stays inside.
To show you how many pores there are, you may look at this little piece
of paper, which is just one inch square. In such a space on the limbs
there are _five hundred_ pores. On the trunk of the body, forehead,
back of the hand, and on the foot, _one thousand_; and on the palm of
the hand and sole of the foot there are _twenty-seven hundred_. Each
of these little waste-pipes is one-fifth of an inch long. If they were
placed one after another, wise men tell us we would have two or three
miles, and perhaps even more, of waste-pipes for the body. What do you
suppose would happen if they were choked up, and all the waste should
remain inside?
AMY: We would become ill.
MOTHER: We surely would. Sometimes we call it “taking cold.” If we cool
off too quickly when warm, or get our clothes wet and do not put on dry
ones, or in a warm spring day put on thin clothes, all these things
stop the waste-pipes, and we “catch cold,” have a sore throat, and we
may have a fever, which shows that the waste is being burned up inside;
and the house becomes burning hot.
PERCY: Then the pores must be kept open all the time if we would be
well.
MOTHER: Yes; but there is another way than those I have told you by
which they get choked up. The waste-pipes leave the dirt they carry out
of the body on the skin, for that is as far as they can carry it. The
master of the house must see that the skin is kept clean, so the pipes
will not be choked.
ELMER: Then he ought to wash it often.
MOTHER: I think so, and not only some parts, but the whole house needs
a good scrubbing with soap and warm water as often as twice a week, and
if he will then take a bath of some kind each day, that will keep the
skin clean and healthy. Even rubbing the whole body once a day with a
damp towel and then with a dry one, will keep the waste-pipes open, so
they can do good work, if there is a thorough scrubbing twice a week,
as I have said. We should also be careful to wear clean clothing next
to the skin, for there is about a quart of waste matter carried through
the pores every day. Can you think of any other ways in which the skin
is useful besides being a covering and carrying away the waste?
HELEN: It helps us _feel_ different objects. Those who are blind learn
to do many useful things by the sense of touch.
[Illustration: “_A thorough scrubbing._”]
MOTHER: Yes, we learn many things by this sense. You know when you show
anything to a baby it stretches out its little hands to “feel” of the
object. How do you think such poisons as alcohol and tobacco affect
this covering of the body?
AMY: They must make more waste in the body, and so the skin has more to
do.
PERCY: I think it must fill it full of poison.
ELMER: Does alcohol make the skin look red, mother?
MOTHER: Yes; that is why a man who drinks beer or other drinks
containing alcohol, has such a red face. Sometimes his nose is called
a “rum blossom.” The alcohol makes the blood-vessels larger than they
should be, and so his nose and face become very red. Bad food is also
hurtful to the skin, for it can not be clear and healthy if the blood
is not clean. Pimples and sores are caused by bad blood, and they show
that better food is needed in the body.
AMY: But you haven’t told us what the roof of the body house is, mother.
MOTHER: Have you ever seen a house with a thatched roof--I mean one
covered with hay or straw instead of iron or shingles?
ELMER: Oh, yes, we saw some when we were out in the country!
MOTHER: Well, the roof of the house we live in is more like that than
like a shingled roof.
PERCY: Now I know what you mean: the body-house has a roof of hair.
MOTHER: And it is a most beautiful covering, too. Each hair grows in a
little pocket, which is furnished with a tiny bag of coloring matter
and a bottle of hair oil. These give color to the hair, and keep it
soft and smooth. If we put much oil on the hair, it causes the oil
bottles in the skin to dry up. There is no dressing so good as that
which is made in the skin. We should brush and comb the hair carefully,
to keep it shining and healthy.
People sometimes lose this beautiful thatch, and we say they are
“bald-headed.” In very old people it turns gray or white, and it is
like a beautiful, silvery crown. The Bible says that “a hoary head is
a crown of glory.” Very small, new houses sometimes have no thatch at
all, but as they get larger and older, one grows, and at first it is
fine as softest silk. The Bible says that even the hairs of our head
are all numbered or counted by our heavenly Father. From this we may
see how much He loves and cares for us.
THE CUPOLA
ELMER: Have you seen the cupola on the new house in the next street,
mother?
MOTHER: Yes; it is very pretty. It is quite common now to build cupolas
on large houses. But I was thinking, as you came in, of the cupola, or
tower, on the house we live in. Can you think what it is?
PERCY: It must be the head.
MOTHER: That is right, but, unlike the cupola of a common house, which
is used but little, the head is the best room of all, and the others
would be of little worth without it. It is here we find the master, the
one who gives orders to his servants, the muscles, and directs all they
do.
In large business houses you sometimes see a room having on the door
the word “Office,” and you know if you have business there, that is the
place for you to go to find the manager. We might call the head the
office room of the body, for it is here the manager is always found if
at home.
While you know there is a master to our house, yet you can not see him.
He may peep through the windows, you may hear him speak, and you can
talk to him. Perhaps you will love him very much, or you may dislike to
be near him. You may see his work, but still you can not see _him_.
AMY: You must mean that the mind is master of the body, is it not,
mother?
MOTHER: It surely _ought_ to be; but I am sorry to say that in some
houses the servants get the master to do as they like, and then the
body-house has a bad time, for “whether one member suffer, all the
members suffer with it.” The apostle Paul said, “I keep under my body,
and bring it into subjection,” and this is the work given to the master
of every body-house. The mind should know what is good for the body,
and, though the servants may ask many times to do as they like, he
should firmly say, “_No_,” whenever they wish to do wrong. Can you tell
what the mind is?
HELEN: It is the part of me that thinks and remembers.
MOTHER: And it also _wills_, that is, we “make up our mind,” as we say.
Why do you think our mind is in the head?
PERCY: Why, if our hands, arms, or feet were cut off, we could still
think.
MOTHER: Do you remember the name of the organ inside the head with
which we think?
AMY: The brain.
MOTHER: Yes; and since the brain is such an important part of the body,
it is put in the strongest room of all. It sometimes becomes ill if not
used right, so we should learn how to keep it well. The worst sickness
in the world is mind sickness, and it is hardest to cure.
The brain has six coverings in all. The outside coverings are the hair
and scalp, or skin. Then we find the strong bones, fitted closely
together with saw-teeth edges. Inside the bones the brain has three
coverings: first, a tough, strong skin; then a very thin covering,
hardly thicker than a spider’s web; and the third is made up of many
little blood-vessels, which feed the brain.
AMY: I wish we could see how the brain looks, mother.
PERCY: I have seen brains at the butcher shops. Do ours look like that?
MOTHER: Yes, quite the same. You have all seen the marrow in the bones.
The brain looks some like that, too. It is made of jelly-like matter,
and seems to be all crumpled up, so it is full of ridges and creases,
as you see in this picture. It is said a baby’s brain is quite smooth,
but the more a person thinks, the more ridges and furrows his brain
will have and the deeper they are. A frog’s brain is smooth, like this.
[Illustration: _The brain is full of ridges and creases._]
[Illustration: “_A frog’s brain is smooth._”]
ELMER: But I don’t see how the brain thinks.
MOTHER: That is one of the things we can never understand. God gave men
life, and when we are alive we think. “In Him we live, and move, and
have our being,” and to be able to think is one of the best gifts that
comes with life. It is the life God gives us which makes the body-house
worth more than the most costly palace in the world.
If we look carefully into the brain, we see that the outside is gray,
and the inside is white. Wise men tell us this matter is made of cells,
called nerve cells, or brain cells. The gray matter tells the muscles
what to do, and the white part sends the orders to all parts of the
body through the nerves.
ELMER: Have we more than one brain, mother?
MOTHER: I might say no, and yes. It is really one, and yet it is in
several parts. One is the big brain, which is found above the ears in
the top of the head. It is with this part we think and reason. Then
there is a little brain, in the back part of the head under the large
brain. It is about as big as a medium-sized orange. Each brain has two
parts, a right and left half, so we really have two brains. It might be
said we are “left brained” when we are “right handed,” for the right
hand is ruled by the left half of the brain.
AMY: How large is the brain, mother?
MOTHER: That of a man weighs about three pounds. An elephant’s weighs
eight or ten pounds, and that is the heaviest of any we know. The brain
must be used, the same as the muscles, if we would have it do its work
well. It makes it grow and does it good when we study and think. As it
was made to think about something, we should give it good things to
think about. If it is lazy, it will lose the power to work, just as the
muscles do, and if used, it will grow stronger and can do still harder
work.
HELEN: And does it ever need rest?
MOTHER: Certainly; it must rest, the same as the muscles. People
sometimes hurt the brain by working it very hard and letting the
muscles do nothing.
PERCY: But how can it rest? We can’t stop thinking.
MOTHER: No; we think of something all the time we are awake, so the
best way to rest the brain is to take plenty of sleep. Sometimes a part
of it keeps awake while the body is asleep, and then we say we had a
dream. Another way to rest the mind is to set the muscles at work after
we have been reading or studying. Boys and girls in school should spend
part of each day working, or in some way using their muscles in the
open air.
ELMER: I should think the master of the body-house would want to look
outside of his little room sometimes.
MOTHER: Yes, he does; and the cupola of which we have been talking has
two wonderful windows.
AMY: Oh, I know what they are! They are our eyes.
MOTHER: Yes, and through them the master looks out and sees all that is
passing around him.
HELEN: I should think there ought to be windows on all sides of his
room. He can look out only one way.
MOTHER: But you see this cupola is placed on top of a tower we call the
neck, which turns easily and quickly, and, besides, the whole house can
“face about” in an instant, so he can look other ways than straight
ahead, with no trouble.
PERCY: Why do you call the brain the master of the house, mother?
MOTHER: Because it tells the feet, hands, tongue, eyes, and all other
parts of the body what to do, and they obey it. Sometimes we find a bad
master in one of these beautiful houses. He tells the feet to go to a
saloon. He tells the tongue to ask for beer and other kinds of strong
drink. He tells the hand to lift the glass to his lips. It may be he
knows he is taking poison into the house, which will make his servants,
the muscles, unfit for work. Perhaps he knows, too, that the drink will
hurt himself more than any other part of the body-house, for it puts
him to sleep when he ought to be awake telling his servants what to
do, yet he does it, and often suffers all the rest of his life for his
folly.
ELMER: Does alcohol hurt the brain?
MOTHER: Surely it does. It makes the blood impure, so it can not
furnish good food for the brain. It causes more blood to go to the head
than ought to be there. It makes people mad, crazy, or insane.
Sometimes it brings that awful disease, delirium tremens, and then the
poor master thinks his best friends are his enemies, that serpents and
horrible creatures are crawling over his body, and he dies a terrible
death, and goes into a drunkard’s grave. He ruins the house God gave
him to live in, and finds it is true that “at the last it biteth like a
serpent, and stingeth like an adder.”
Children, never touch these poison drinks.
“Never put them in your mouth, To steal away your brains.”
OUR TELEPHONE SYSTEM
PERCY: Ting-a-ling! There’s the telephone bell. How strange it seems to
talk to people, and hear them talk, when they are miles away!
MOTHER: But the most wonderful telephone in the world is found in the
house we live in.
HELEN: Why, mother, you don’t mean to say we have wires all through our
bodies, do you?
MOTHER: Not wires, but something that answers the same purpose, only it
is far more perfect. You know the brain is the master of the house, and
there are hundreds of muscles waiting to do what he bids them. But the
brain is upstairs, safe in his own strong little room. How can he tell
the fingers how to work, and the feet where to walk?
AMY: Please tell us, mother. I’m sure I don’t know.
MOTHER: Well, instead of wires we have thousands of little lines
called _nerves_, reaching from the brain to every part of the body.
They are made of matter like that in the brain, and they are so close
together that you can touch no place on your body, even with the point
of a pin, without touching a nerve. Messages are sent over them to the
brain, and back again to the muscles. With the nerves we _feel_. We
call it the sense of touch.
We might call the brain the “central office,” from which messages are
sent, and where they come back. In the city you have seen many wires
stretched on poles. Sometimes they are bound up together and covered
over, making a cable like a big rope. You remember I told you there
is a spinal cord or marrow running through your backbone. This is
made up of many nerves, as the cable is made of many wires. There are
sixty-two branch lines coiled up in it. By looking at the bottom part
of the picture of the brain you will see where this large cable enters
the central office. Really, the top part of the cord is a little brain
itself, with a long name, which we will not trouble now to learn.
[Illustration: _The nerves._]
ELMER: If all the nerves come from the backbone, how do any get to the
face?
MOTHER: There are some little holes in the skull, and through these
twenty-four branch lines pass, carrying the nerves all over the face
and head. One pair find their way to the nose, and they tell the master
of the house how things smell. Another pair reach to the eyes, and tell
him how things look. They are nerves of sight. There are three pairs to
tell the muscles of the eye how to move. One pair passes to the ears,
and are called nerves of hearing. The others are scattered all over the
face, passing to the teeth, tongue, and throat, and even to other parts
of the body. This picture shows the brain as the main office, the cord
or cable in the back-bone, and how the branches extend to all parts of
the body. Still there are thousands of smaller lines which can not be
seen at all.
HELEN: And what sends the messages to and from the brain over the
nerves, mother?
MOTHER: The power which sends them is called “nerve force,” though
what it is even the wisest men do not know. We can stop it by pressing
on the nerves, just as you can stop the current of the telegraph. We
sometimes say that our leg or arm is “asleep.” If we try to move, it
gives us pain, or it may be we can not move at all. One nerve runs
along the back side of the arm over the elbow. If we hit the elbow,
it makes the arm and hand feel numb. We say the “funny bone,” or the
“crazy bone,” is hurt, but it is not the bone at all, but the nerve.
AMY: I heard a lady who is ill say she wished she had no nerves. Why do
we have them?
MOTHER: I think we have already learned how useful they are to carry
messages for us. We would be quite helpless without them, for the
brain sends word over them every time we move any part of the body.
Another reason is they watch for our welfare. If we are cut or burned,
it gives us pain. We don’t like the pain, so we are more careful when
we use sharp tools or go near the fire.
If you touch the hot stove, you jerk away your hand. “I’m burnt,” the
finger sends word to the brain. The brain sends back the message, “Get
off the stove, quick.” And to the nerves of the eye it says, “See if
it is blistered.” To the face muscles, “Make up a wry face to show how
badly it hurts.” To the feet and hands, “Get some cold water to put
the burned finger in.” To the tongue, “Tell your mother about it.” All
these messages are sent at the rate of one hundred feet a second, and
the eye, face, hands, feet, and tongue all feel sorry for the burnt
finger, and do all they can to help it.
[Illustration: “_Tell your mother about it._”]
Every part of the body, the bones, muscles, stomach, heart, and lungs,
has these useful little nerves to let the master know when anything is
wrong with them.
ELMER: Do the nerves ever get sick, mother?
MOTHER: Oh, yes, very often! Sometimes they are so ill that no message
can pass over them to the brain. Then we say the person is paralyzed.
A lady had her limbs paralyzed. She could not walk, or move her feet
at all. One day she took a foot bath. She could not tell whether the
water was cold or hot, and soon the nurse found the skin on her feet
blistered, because the water was too warm. The nerves were dead, and
she felt no pain at all. Pain is hard to bear, but if there were no
pain, the house we live in would soon be ruined. It tells us when
danger is near, and because we do not like the pain, we take care
of the body. The nerves are more wonderful than any telephone or
telegraph, and when you get older, you must learn all you can about
them.
HELEN: The brain must have a lot of work looking after the nerves and
sending so many messages over them. I don’t see how it can think of
anything else.
MOTHER: Perhaps I can explain it to you. Suppose there is a family who
have much to do. The father does the hardest work of all. When his
wife sees how much he has to do, she tries to help him all she can,
so she does many things without saying anything to her husband about
it. They have one son, a strong, upright young man, and he takes part
of the work, because he wishes to help his parents. We will call the
large brain the father, because it does so much of our thinking. As you
say, Helen, if he looked after all parts of the body, there would be
but little time for study and helping other people. Besides, he falls
asleep sometimes, so the little brain, which we will call his wife,
takes the work that must be done _all_ the time, as good wives and
mothers do, such as keeping the heart beating, the lungs breathing, and
other parts of the body at work which can not stop to rest. Then there
is the spinal cord, which we will call the son, and he takes charge of
the feet and hands when they have common kinds of work to do. When you
went to school this morning, I saw you reading a book while you walked.
Your brain did not send word to each muscle what to do every time you
took a step, but you walked “without thinking,” as we say. The spinal
cord took charge of your feet, so we know it can do an easy kind of
thinking. When you were learning to skate, Percy, you kept thinking all
the time how to move your feet and what to do to keep from falling.
But after you had learned how, Father Brain gave his son, Spinal Cord,
charge of you, and he thinks of something else most of the time while
you skate. It is the same with anything we have learned to do well by
doing it over and over, such as playing the piano, riding a bicycle,
and many other things we keep doing again and again.
PERCY: Does alcohol harm the nerves, mother?
MOTHER: Yes, indeed. Alcohol seems to like the nerves better than any
other part of the body, and it does them more harm than any other,
except the brain. When alcohol touches a nerve, it dries it up and
makes it hard, as though it had been burned. It causes that dreadful
disease, paralysis, of which I have told you. The nerves get so stupid
and sleepy they do not know what the brain says to them. They can not
tell the muscles what to do, and this is why a drunken man staggers.
A drunkard has trembling hands, because the poison has made his nerves
sick. Sometimes those wonderful nerves of the eye and ear tell him
lies, and he believes what they say. Sometimes the poor nerves and
brain are so nearly dead that the man falls down, and people say he is
“dead drunk.”
ELMER: I have heard people say tobacco was good for the nerves, that it
made them feel rested, and they could think better.
[Illustration: “_The little boy is forming a bad habit._”]
MOTHER: Tobacco is a poison, and is as hurtful to the nerves as
alcohol. One who uses it thinks he is rested, but the reason he feels
so is because the poison has put his nerves to sleep. Tobacco also
creates an appetite for strong drinks. It is very bad for boys to use
tobacco in any way.
AMY: What should we do to keep the nerves well?
MOTHER: Give them good food, plenty of fresh air, and no poisons of
any kind. They must also have rest to keep them strong. It helps
the nerves to be happy and cheerful. The little boy in this picture
is forming a bad habit, which will not only make him unhappy but
unhealthy. Hateful, unpleasant thoughts make poisons in the body and
cause sickness in the brain and nerves. People sometimes drop dead by
becoming very angry. “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Yes,
it is much better than any medicine men can make. Children should form
the habit of being happy and hopeful. The brain and nerves will form
good or bad habits, and the master of the body-house should use all his
power to have them good instead of bad. Every evil habit leaves a scar
on the brain.
THE HALL OR PASSAGE
MOTHER: I once read a book called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and in it a
story was told of how a lady was once talking with a little negro girl
named Topsy.
“Who made you?” she asked the child.
“Nobody, as I knows on. _I s’pect I grow’d_,” was the answer.
Now we know God made the body-houses we live in, for “it is He that
hath made us, and not we ourselves;” yet in one way Topsy was right,
for we all “grow’d.” God made us grow, and it is He only that can make
anything grow.
ELMER: But we must have food to make us grow.
MOTHER: Yes, everything that has life must have food of some kind. You
remember I told you we had iron, lime, and other things to build the
body-house, just as a man must have wood, brick, iron, and glass when
he wishes to build. We have looked at the outside of the house we live
in, and we have learned some things about its frame, its servants, the
telephone system, and the master who lives inside. Now we will look
through some of the wonderful rooms in the house, and I am sure you
will enjoy learning how they are made, and the work that is done in
them.
The door, or entrance, is so small we can not possibly go inside
ourselves, so here is a slice of good whole-wheat bread we will send,
and I will tell you what it finds within. As it has no tongue, I will
speak the words it would say if it could talk, and you may ask any
question you wish. Now listen:—
I was made from the wheat that grew in a farmer’s field. After the
miller had ground me into flour, your mother made me into a loaf, and I
was baked in a hot oven till I was brown all over outside. As she put
me away to cool, she said, “That will make the children grow.” She left
me alone a whole day, for she knew I was unfit to be eaten while so
warm. After that I was cut into slices and made ready to help mend and
build up the body-house.
I started on my way to the kitchen, where much of the work is done, and
to get there passed through a pair of front doors, which were a pretty
red color. These doors, I have been told, can do wonderful things
besides opening to let visitors pass in. They can sing, whistle, and
talk. They look best when the corners turn up; if they turn down, one
does not care to go near them.
HELEN: Oh, I see! You mean our lips.
MOTHER: Yes, I think that is what you call them. When I passed inside
the doors, I found a double row of thirty-two servants, all dressed in
clean white dresses, waiting for me. Children have only twenty-eight of
these servants, I am told. It was their work to make me ready for the
kitchen downstairs. If the house is very new, you will find only three
or four, or perhaps none at all.
[Illustration: “_WHEAT THAT GREW IN A FARMER’S FIELD._”]