Applied Psychology for Nurses | Page 9

makes me walk into the shop and buy the rolls is

consciousness in the form of willing. The sensory appeal from the
outside world gained admission through the sense of smell; this
transmitted the message, and consciousness recognized the stimulus,
which immediately appealed to my hunger and incited action to satisfy
that hunger.
The ear of the operator in the telegraph office, again, might illustrate
consciousness. It must be able to interpret mere clickings into terms of
sense. To the operator the sounds say words, and the words are the
expression of the object at the other end of the wire. The brain is the
receiving operator for all the senses, which bring their messages in
code, and which it interprets first as sound, vision, taste, touch, feel,
smell, temperature; then more accurately as words, trees, sweet, soft,
round, acrid, hot.
The mind can know nothing except as the stimulus is transmitted by
sense-channels over the nerves of sense, and received by a conscious
brain. A baby born without sight, hearing, taste, smell, or touch would
remain a mere bit of clay. He could have no awareness. But so long as
any one sense channel remains open the mind may acquire some
knowledge.
Suppose I am paralyzed, blind, and deaf, and you put a tennis-ball into
my hand. I cannot tell you what it is, not even what it is like. It means
nothing whatever to me, for the sense channels of touch, sight, and
hearing, through which alone it could be impressed upon my brain, are
gone. Suppose I am blind and deaf, but have my sense of touch intact;
that I never saw or touched or heard of a tennis-ball before, but I know
"apple" and "orange." I can judge that the object is round, that it is
about the size of a small orange or apple. It is very light, and has a feel
of cloth. I know it to be something new in my experience. You tell me
in the language of touch that it is "tennis-ball"; and thereafter I
recognize it by its combination of size, feel, and weight, and can soon
name it as quickly as you, who see it.
Suppose I am blind and my hands are paralyzed, but I have my hearing.
You tell me this is a tennis-ball, and if I have known "tennis-ball" in the
past, I can describe it to you. It has been impressed upon my brain

through my sense of hearing; and memory immediately supplies the
qualities that go with "tennis-ball."
But if none of the senses has ever developed, my brain can receive no
impression whatever; it cannot have even the stimulus of memory.
Hence conscious mind cannot be, except as some sense-channel or
channels have been opened to carry thought material to the brain. So far
as we know today, in this world, mind is absolutely dependent upon the
sense organs and the brain--upon matter--for existence.
THE SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM
Associated with the central nervous system by connecting nerves--but
located outside of it in various parts of the body--are groups of
nerve-cells (gray matter) and their fibers, forming what we call the
sympathetic nervous system--the direct connecting link between mind
and body.
The central nervous system is the director of all conscious action of the
body; the sympathetic orders all unconscious action.
The beating of the heart, the contraction of the blood-vessels, hence the
flowing of the blood, the processes of digestion, the functioning of the
glands, are all directed by the sympathetic. In other words, the central
nervous system normally controls the movements of the voluntary
muscles; the sympathetic controls those of the involuntary muscles.
The quick blush, the sudden paling of the cheeks, the start of fear, the
dilated pupils of fright are the direct result of the action of involuntary
muscles under control of the sympathetic system. The stimulus is
received by the central nervous system; the fibers connecting the
central and the sympathetic systems carry the message quickly to the
latter, which immediately respond by ordering contraction or expansion
of involuntary muscles. So tears flow, we breathe freely again or we
quake and tremble, our pupils widen or contract, the heart beats
suffocatingly, or seems almost to stop.
The sympathetic system, as the name implies, is influenced by

suggestions from the emotions rather than from the intellect. We might
say that it is controlled by the "feeling mind" rather than the thinking
mind, for intellect cannot influence it in the least.
The wise nurse, who knows something of the laws of the mind, soon
realizes that the sympathetic nervous system, rather than physical
disability, causes many indigestions, headaches, diarrheas, dry mouths,
chills; is responsible for much nausea, much "exhaustion," etc. When
she has had wider experience she finds that almost any known physical
disorder