Polytechnic High School - Caerulea Yearbook (Long Beach, CA)

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his pituitary gland. When I am very weary and worn out, I wish I could make the adrenal bodies work a bit faster. If I yawn before a mirror-it often happens-I look to see if I may have any inflammation on my pillars of the fauces or my tonsils. When I bump my elbow and make a blackfandfblue mark, I realize that I have smashed some capillaries. In the dentist's chair, when my mouth fills with saliva, I wish we had been equipped with stoppers for our submaxillary and sublingual glands. When the mumps epidemic stalks abroad, I pray that my parotid glands are healthy and well perserved. When I am ill and the doctor comes to feel my pulse, I think of the course of the blood as it rushes into the right auricle, past the tri' cuspid valves into the right ventricle, past the semiluner valves into the pulmonary artery and thence to the lungs. I rest a moment while the blood slowly seeps through the capillaries that are so small even the corpuscles must go through single file. I then follow the blood as it courses back to the left auricle, past the mitral valves into the left ventricle, past the semilunar valves into the aorta. By this time I am so exhausted I do not care whether the blood all goes up through the carotid and sub' clavian arteries, or jumps clear across and comes into the heart again through the vena cavas. The doctor says I am very ill, and I believe him. I am a miserable woman! There are a few things physiology has taught me, however, that give me relief of mind. For instance, now I know why people can eat clabbered milk and do not die, I no longer shudder at the thoughts of it. I know that milk must be curdled before it can be digested and that rennin in the gastric juice is there for the purpose of separating the proteid from the rest of the milk so that the pepsin can change the proteid to peptones and peptids. I am greatly relieved. And again, I am pleased to learn that candies are not merely confections, but they are real foods that produce energy. You would be surprised to know how much energy I need. Yet the most stupendous thought of all is that I have but nicely begun the study of physiology! When I begin to study the nervous system, and the devious workings of that most marvelous instrument, the brain, and begin to learn what there is about it that enables me to Twenty-one

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that we want muscle tissue, not cartilage. I no longer respect pork, for I cannot forget those curly, wigglyflooking trichina parasites that are in it. I shudder to think of the eightyfiive thousand little worms that may sometimes be in a single ounce of pork meat. As soon as I am up in the morning, I scramble wildly for my tooth brush, thinking of the myriads of bacteria that may have hatched during the night. And to think that some people eat breakfast without first washing their teeth-ugh! The thought of it drives me frantic. Oh phy' siology! I'll soon be a nervous wreck. If I cut a deep wound in my finger, all I can think of, as I watch it bleed, is antithrombin, prothrombin, fibrinogen, and I do not forget calcium salts. I wonder how long the fluid is thromboplastic substance, and when it neutralizes the antithrombin. I am happy when the blood ceases to flow from the wound, for I know the clot has formed and I will not lose more blood. Cf course, in the case of a deep and painful wound it is well to get one's mind off the pain, but think of the agony of mind, working over all those things. Oh physiology, physiology! When I am invited out for dinner and my hostess serves something I do not like and cannot easily swallow, I simply force it down part way, then concentrate on peristaltic motion to help me through the crisis. Cn Thanksgiving and Christmas, when all the good things of the season are assembled, I feel like eating until I cannot swallow more. Then I say to myself, I'Ifmm. Guess my cardiac valve must have paralysis.. My esophagus seems full to the pharynx. Better stop before the food runs over past the epiglottisf' After that, you see, the meal is a complete failure for me just because of my having studied physiology-it is just ruining me! Lf a mosquito bites me, I almost have hysterics for fear it is a yellow fever or malariafinfected insect. Then I proceed to worry about it for fortyfeight or fortyfnine hours, and if I do not at that time have chills or fever, I go peacefully about my duties. But the hours of thinking about the progress of the germ that might be in the body-it is enough to drive me insane. When I have -a pain in my side, I wonder instantly whether it can be peritonitis, and I shiver in apprehension. If my ears ring, I wonder what is pressing against my eutachian tubes. When I pass an unusually tall person, I decide that he had an abundant amount of secretion from Twenty

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think of all these things-I can only babble in incoherence. lviy one hope is that in studying the brain, I may be able to ind something that will help me and let me-forget! BATIK IVIINDS Albert Gustus Batik handerchiefs Are like some people's minds, Colorful in spots Indicating ternperamental idiosyncrasiesg In places white, Showing thoughtless strife and endeavor. The multifcolors, Significant of many things started, But ne'er completed: Lack of persistence, Senseless inconsistency. Nothing in the center, Useless beating around the bush. These same minds And likewise handerchiefs Will have more constancy of color If pushed in dye Ur in the mental swim, The minds to be trained As mere followers If nothing else, Which is really better Than being dumb . Twenty-two