Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, July 4, 1915, Page 17

“When we enoy ourselves like this on a warm day we ‘feel good’ because the sensations that reach aur brain through the skin are a part of the nerve complex we call ‘happiness. OST of us know what it means to ‘“feel good,” and those who do not certainly know what it means to “feel bad.” Few people, however, have {any definite idea of the exact causes that roduece these states of feeling. We know, or instance, that a pleasant breeze on 4 moderately warm day is likely to make us feel good. We know that a good dimmer properly digested has a similar effect. But the exact paths by which this feeling is spread all through our organismc. is & mys- tery to most people. Professor George V. N, Dearborn of the Tufts College Medical and Dental Schools, Boston, and the Sargent Normal School, Cambridge, has made a most ingenious at- tempt to explain sclentifically what it s that makes us “feel good” and also, to some extent, what makes us “feel bad.” Among his conclusions he finds that the 4,000,000 villi of the intestine, little tufts, rich in smooth muscle' and sympathetic nerves, adapt the nutritivé fats and pro- *eins of the blood to the immediate needs .\ the nerve cells and may, besides, send sympathetic influences which, fusing in the brain, make us “feel good” or gen- erally happy. “Huphoria”_ is the pretty scientific word, that he uses for the condition of feeling generally well and happy. “Dysphoria” is the corresponding word for feeling bad. This sclentist finds that three classes ot factors principally make up the condi- tion of “Buphoria”: (A) Nutritional and sympathetic influences from the active in- testinal villi; (B) Kinesthesla, or the sense of movement, and (C) the epicritic im- pulses or the impulses which flow from sensations felt in the skin. The nutritional influences toward good humor or feeling good go to the neurons, or nervous units, and especially to those in the gray layer of the brain and trunk nerves through the blood streams from the liver and digestive centres. The sympa- thetic impulses that also contribute to feeling good are certain nerve currents which experimental physiology and the investigator's personal gexperfence both suggest to be in operation. These im pulses from the intestines have much to do with the determination of moods and passions and temperaments. Professor Dearborn says that under normal conditions there is a direct rela- tionehip between absorption of food from the small intestines and the general state of the mind. This is why acute fatigue is so0 {mmediately relieved by a glass of hot milk or malted milk or some variety of soup - This profound physiological truth also explains why the worried man, on coming home from the office feels’his worries slip away so very quickly after @inper. There “direct nutritive stimu- lation” of the central, and especially the cortical, nerve centres, “It 1s not a traditional delusion,” says Professor ‘Dearborn, “that fat men and boys are usually good natured, and lean women cuttingly keen and not, obviously, too happy. On the one hand, the Fskimos, and on the other hand, the races of South- ern Europe, both eaters of much fat, cer tainly have a higher euphoric index than the Scotchman, for example, or the thin, down-East Yankee. A comfortable condition of the nerye cells is dependent on the supply of “Nissl's grapules,” & complex substance cow- pounded of fat and protein, in which the characteristic determinant 1s what the blologists term a lipoid, a fatlike material, or phu:hphnrued fat. Experiments have shown that there is a very quick loss of this material in the nerve cells when the loss of material by the body exceeds the intake. In addition to these important bodies the ath of the principal nerves is a fatty ance, very liable to suffer from the same causes. The minute nerve cells are in imme- diate and constant relation with the blood stream. A blood corpuscle passes entirely Pfl@fi Ifi s Feel Good™ Why You Have That Lazy, Contented Feeling After a Good . . .- Meal; Why We Love to Bask in the Warm Summer Sunshine; Why Dancing Makes Us Happy;' What . Makes Us Uncomfortable on Hot Days and Why Everybody Hates Humid, Sticky Weather through the circulation in about thirty sec- onds. The unification of nerve cell nutri- tion and blood from the intestine is sur- prisingly complete and rapld. An increase in the fat content taken up by the intes- tine is almost immediately used in the lining of the brain and trunk nerves, rais- ing the tone of the nerve cells to a bet ter condition, testinal villus. A, | yinus, howing | (E) in interior of A, lymph ecorpus~ The Physical Mechanism of Happiness. influences, from as many receptors in the joints, muscles, tendons, skin and bones, are continually pouring into our centres of consciousness. “These,” says Professor Dearborn, “rep- resent in the ultimate analysis the environ- ment to the personality within and more specifically integrate the body and the mind, furnishing to the psvchomotor cen ule (E), which hes been ex- | SIOPUIe (E) 1—Sedétion of in- 2 == Tatestinsl 3—Food particle ‘ 4—Fatty glob- 5w Fatty cles that mbsorh | food particle (E) |villus, where it is extracted | f00d purticle by | through the food particles; B, |about to be ab. | fat tracted from the (PO oAin® lymphatic duct|uorbed Into the | for the bemefit of [the Lymph cor- (m o 1 = that conveys nour- | digestive system | the nervous sys- pasm ishmeut to nerve |through the villus [ tem and carried | through the Jt- celis; C, wall of land separated into | to the lining of |tle duet to the brain and |lymphatic sys. | 8 ubeclavian villusy D, border [its different ele- | the e |1y mphatie to the of lymphatie duet. | ments. nerves. | tem. veln (F). Professor Dearborn gives an interesting sketch of the passage of fat from the in- testine to the nerve cells. The villi are the chief organs of food absorption from the intestines. There are about 4,000,000 of these organs in the human. They are irregular, but in gemeral finger-shaped or- gans, about one-tenth of an inch in length. Their combined surface area in- creases the absorptive area of the intes- tine at least a hundredfold over what it would be if the gut were & smooth-walled tube instead of one partly filled by these organs. The villus contains among its many complicated parts a central lympha- tic tube, whose chief function is to re- ceive the fat globules and to forward them , into the eirculation. Professor Dearborn says that it is extremely probable that the mechanism of the villus has as part of its function the pr?vldlnx of more fat from other parts of "the body for the nerves. On this bas he thinks the villus is understandable as a minute reservoir of - adipose material, perhaps, indeed, chiefly, for the variable uses of the ner- vous systqm, nerve cells, and nerve fibres. Kinesthesia is the second main factor in the condition of feeling good. It is de- fingd as the fundamental behavior semse and by one authority as the quality by which we become aware of our position in space. Thousands of impulses, strains and tres their only data by which the body may be co-ordinated.” The muscles of our body have always, even in the deepest slumber, some “fonus” and are sending, together with their mechanical fellow tissues, floods of en- ergy into the central nervous system. This is why physical activity makes happl ness and c mental activit; Swimming, skating and classical danc- ing must, in the opinfon of Professor Dearborn, create conditions of physiolog- ical happiness. Anything that involves skill temds to create- hippiness through the kinesthetic A slightof-hand performance, guid- fret-saw, engraving on metal or carv- wood, drawing, pitching skilfully a baseball—all such movements have an in- herent pleasantness, They supply in in- tensity of kinesthesia what they lack in quantity of stimulation. The third main factor in making us feel good consists of the epicritic impulses re- celved from the skin. The many functions of the skin are still imperfectly under: stood, but are now being investigated with interesting results. Only a few speclalists companying diagram shows some of the important functions of the ski Among the more complex elements of “epyright, 1015, by the Star Company. the heart throush the wsubcluvian way to the braia and nervous ays- shading, sad the Skin That “Feel Good.” 1. Protection against Injury. t production, 7. Absorption, 2. Perception of heat. 5. Lubrication or sebum produs- 8. Coloration. the human skin are the heatreceptors, cold-receptors, pain-receptors tickie-receptors and Evidence accumulates that one large and Great Britain Rights Reserved. well-nigh indispensable element of feel- stimulation of the skin in the Just as bowing over a rich, natural meadow be- neficially influences all the different kinds of herbage at once, to the general en- richment of the fleld, so & proper stimula. tlon of the skin Influences the whole hu- man organism. Spring wind Experiments have proved theat air which is “dead” 1. e, not moving, hu- mid and too rm, humid and too cold, or lacking in oxy, gen, is a ready oc- casioner of gen- eral discomfort, {ll- defined irritations in stomach and intes- tines and a rapidly rising temperature in the skin. All that solence can say on this point now fis that dead air means & lack of movement over the skin; air that fs humid and too warm means a lack of stimulation by the most suitable temperature and by evaporation; air that is humid and too cold means similarly a lack of the most suitable temperature and a lack of dryness. Lack of oxygen in the air, whether from its general chemical composition or from its utter deadness kin, means a lack of stimula- rious receptors. ‘A Very Important Group of Factors to Happiness Arises from Movements, Such as Classical Dancipg or Doing Some Skilful Work" Madame Karsavina Here Mlustrates the Kind of Dancing That Helps Happiness. Other sgnse organs, those of oxidation or evaporation, of tickle and of touch, ere in a lfke manner “tunable” to outside con- ditions. Gentle friction of the skin is also’ con ducive to feellng well. Every known ani- mal of sufficlent evolutionary develop- ment acts as if it enjoyed gentle massage of the skin, Baths of suitable tempereture have a most important influence in mak. tng ds feel well because of the gentle stimulation. of the skin, which is imme- diately felt by the deep-seated nervous receptors. Two functivns of the skin which spread a feeling of well-being through the system are evaporation and oxidation, The evap- oration of the sweat poured out in the dermis is the chief means of the tion of temperature. The average daily amount {8 about 1,500 cubic centimeters (about 1,600 thimblefuls), but a group of glassmakers observed by Dr. McElroy had an average secretion of 25,000 cubic cen- timeters in the course of a nine-hour day. Occasionally the production stopped, whereupon the man would become ill, have to cease work and would be revived by the active efforts of ‘his fellow . workers. This shows that the sweating function is closely allled with feeling well, Sultry and mu| weather shows us the same thing w free evaporation corrects ft. Students in Summer school may enjoy a feeling of “Buphoria” with vigorous ex- ercise when the gymnasium temperature is in the 80’s. 3 The mysterious highly euphoric stimula. tion of a gale of wind, when not outside the favorable range of temperature, as in Nova Scotla in September, {s well known to doctors, and this implies that gross friction, friction in the ordinary ph sense of the term, may be also a factor making us “feel good." “Massage and the caress seem to possibly imply the same thing,” comments Professor Dearborn.