6/12 What makes this more probable is that in persons who are "left-handed," the speech centre lies upon the opposite or _right_ side of the brain. So it is waste of time and does more harm than good to try to "break" any child of left-handedness. Running downward from the base of the brain, like the stalk of a flower, is a great bundle of nerve-fibres, the central cable of our body telephone system, the spinal cord. This, you will remember, runs through a bony tube formed by the arches of the successive vertebrae; and as it runs down the body, like every other cable it gives off and receives branches connecting it with the different parts of the body through which it passes. These branches are given off in pairs, and run out through openings between the little sections of bone, or vertebrae, of which the spinal column is made up. |