304 THE GROWTH OF THE BRAIN. 



may be added those rhythmic variations which occur 

 when we attempt to fix our attention steadily on one 

 point, as well as those in the muscles of expression, 

 variations which are recorded in everything from the 

 rhetorical period to tremor. These variations in the 

 bodily condition are in general more marked in women 

 than in men, 1 and the manner in which our entire 

 existence is shot through with them is, in the light of 

 the observations given above, amply evident. 



In view of this, the times and seasons for the tasks 

 when the exercise of the nervous system is undertaken 

 are worthy of careful study, for on the proper selection 

 of them will depend in some measure the results. 



In popular estimation the organism is looked on as 

 subject to but little change, while the surrounding con- 

 ditions are made responsible for the differences in re- 

 actions that are noted in different persons or in the same 

 person at different times, yet as a matter of fact the 

 variations in the organism play the more important role. 

 Though in health we are for the most part delightfully 

 unconscious of these changes in ourselves, in abnormal 

 conditions the consciousness of them can be greatly 

 modified, and that too in either direction. A patient 

 may be in bed for months with all the sensations of a 

 broken leg, when there has been no break ; suffer from 

 constipation, through neglect of the ordinary visceral 

 sensations, which are somehow disregarded ; or have for 

 all practical purposes a paralysed arm which has grown 

 out of the fear of pain, should the attempt be made to 

 move it. Instances of this sort lie so close to every-day 

 experience that a case may be quoted : 2 " A lady 

 about forty years of age, the wife of a physician, con- 

 sulted me in September, 1885, about her left shoulder ; 



1 Vide Ellis, Man and Woman, 1894. 



2 Taylor, Journ. of Nerv. and Ment. Dis., 1888. 





