Science experiments in the Stawberry Point classroom.

The Fact of the Matter Is…

From the Files of Gustavus Historical Archives & Antiquities (GHAA)

www.GustavusHistory.org

Q - What experiments were taking place in the early 1900’s classroom?

A -  In the last and final study of Bert Parker’s textbook “The Body And It’s Defenses” from the 1910 Gulich Hygiene Series, we can glean a taste of the fun days our pioneers’ children experienced at school. Akin to today’s fieldtrips or science labs, the mundane could be thrown out the window in exchange for the more lively advantage that the extraordinary might bring.

For example, this must have been fun…the children are instructed to attempt to stop their hearts by thinking hard enough—to show that their brain and heart lives in two different worlds. For precise “throb counting” (and so as not to “stretch” their hearts) they study effects before and after cold and hot baths, sitting vs standing, and running up and down stairs. For one final report (and I imagine great competition here), they announce their heart’s pumping action after running as fast as they can all the way to school! This baseline would help determine future, lurking dangers—including whether or not their heart was “hurrying along” or “dragging”. Here the author warns of common extremes—frail women who fear to take exercise lest they overtax their hearts, contrasted with a man who so overstrained himself running up 8 flights of stairs that he has never been right since. Because an “over-stretched heart” will stay stretched forever, we must not be ignorant or mislead about the heart’s action—we are well or ill, we live or die through the good work which it does or fails to do. Certainly, we can all take that to heart!

Alas, there are hands-on experiments for just about everything under the sun—and many of them call for a trip to the local butcher (or fresh hunt kill). Bone, muscles, ligaments and organ parts teach the pupils all sorts of things. One such acquisition requests “a fresh animal membrane—the bladder will do”. I won’t go into detail here, but the end result requires the “tasting” of the salty water that flows through it! On another fun day, the students tie a finger back to let it engorge with blood, then stick themselves with a needle sterilized by candle flame. Here, I couldn’t help but wonder. Was a single needle passed around dipping in and out of that candle flame?

Cats (chosen because they were easy to get hold of) were subjected to “shadows” (x-rays) to determine how the “food tube” (intestines) worked. One hapless dog had “a tube fastened so ingeniously to his mouth that saliva successfully tracked into it as fast as it was formed”. There is discussion of a scientist who used a syringe to prick one side of either a horse or a man (apparently take your pick!), injecting a harmless chemical to see how long it would take to reach the other side. This brought about an understanding of the “tube systems” from which our own blood supply by our weight could be calculated. And so it was learned that the heart was quite willing to pump salt water to the same places that blood usually traveled—saving countless lives of those who would have otherwise bled to death.

In addition, there is much to be learned from experiments involving dressing and eating habits, breathing mechanics, temperatures and the “lacing up and distorting body parts such as women were want to do—making their waists look (as they walked) like a contracted isthmus doing its best to hold two wide-spreading peninsulas together”. Whew…this being a description of the rear view, of course!

But, in spite of all the fun we have had, there were very serious health matters confronting the day—dirty water, inadequate food storage, raw sewage, tuberculosis, consumption, and typhoid fever. Small pox had killed millions in the recent past. The latest understanding of infection, contagions, and contributing factors were frantically trying to be understood.

Then the book ends well…most important of all was a happy state of mind—affecting the ganglia, nerves, heart, lungs, digestion, and preventing disease. Being joyful makes one quick-witted and able to learn lessons all the faster. A cheerful schoolroom, lively games, pleasant friends, becoming clothes—anything making the student happy without doing harm “helps the ganglia through love, hope, courage, faith, trust and good cheer”. And finally, avoid drafts and keep the body clean by a soap and water bath at least once a week!

Student Bert Parker, born 1902, son of Strawberry Point homesteader Abraham Lincoln Parker, grandfather to Chris Trump, uncle to Lee Parker and Bill White, and whose text we have been studying, lived to be nearly 82. He must have paid attention and learned his lessons well. We should do the same.

Science experiments in the Stawberry Point classroom.

The Fact of the Matter Is…

From the Files of Gustavus Historical Archives & Antiquities (GHAA)

www.GustavusHistory.org

Q - What experiments were taking place in the early 1900’s classroom?

A -  In the last and final study of Bert Parker’s textbook “The Body And It’s Defenses” from the 1910 Gulich Hygiene Series, we can glean a taste of the fun days our pioneers’ children experienced at school. Akin to today’s fieldtrips or science labs, the mundane could be thrown out the window in exchange for the more lively advantage that the extraordinary might bring.

For example, this must have been fun…the children are instructed to attempt to stop their hearts by thinking hard enough—to show that their brain and heart lives in two different worlds. For precise “throb counting” (and so as not to “stretch” their hearts) they study effects before and after cold and hot baths, sitting vs standing, and running up and down stairs. For one final report (and I imagine great competition here), they announce their heart’s pumping action after running as fast as they can all the way to school! This baseline would help determine future, lurking dangers—including whether or not their heart was “hurrying along” or “dragging”. Here the author warns of common extremes—frail women who fear to take exercise lest they overtax their hearts, contrasted with a man who so overstrained himself running up 8 flights of stairs that he has never been right since. Because an “over-stretched heart” will stay stretched forever, we must not be ignorant or mislead about the heart’s action—we are well or ill, we live or die through the good work which it does or fails to do. Certainly, we can all take that to heart!

Alas, there are hands-on experiments for just about everything under the sun—and many of them call for a trip to the local butcher (or fresh hunt kill). Bone, muscles, ligaments and organ parts teach the pupils all sorts of things. One such acquisition requests “a fresh animal membrane—the bladder will do”. I won’t go into detail here, but the end result requires the “tasting” of the salty water that flows through it! On another fun day, the students tie a finger back to let it engorge with blood, then stick themselves with a needle sterilized by candle flame. Here, I couldn’t help but wonder. Was a single needle passed around dipping in and out of that candle flame?

Cats (chosen because they were easy to get hold of) were subjected to “shadows” (x-rays) to determine how the “food tube” (intestines) worked. One hapless dog had “a tube fastened so ingeniously to his mouth that saliva successfully tracked into it as fast as it was formed”. There is discussion of a scientist who used a syringe to prick one side of either a horse or a man (apparently take your pick!), injecting a harmless chemical to see how long it would take to reach the other side. This brought about an understanding of the “tube systems” from which our own blood supply by our weight could be calculated. And so it was learned that the heart was quite willing to pump salt water to the same places that blood usually traveled—saving countless lives of those who would have otherwise bled to death.

In addition, there is much to be learned from experiments involving dressing and eating habits, breathing mechanics, temperatures and the “lacing up and distorting body parts such as women were want to do—making their waists look (as they walked) like a contracted isthmus doing its best to hold two wide-spreading peninsulas together”. Whew…this being a description of the rear view, of course!

But, in spite of all the fun we have had, there were very serious health matters confronting the day—dirty water, inadequate food storage, raw sewage, tuberculosis, consumption, and typhoid fever. Small pox had killed millions in the recent past. The latest understanding of infection, contagions, and contributing factors were frantically trying to be understood.

Then the book ends well…most important of all was a happy state of mind—affecting the ganglia, nerves, heart, lungs, digestion, and preventing disease. Being joyful makes one quick-witted and able to learn lessons all the faster. A cheerful schoolroom, lively games, pleasant friends, becoming clothes—anything making the student happy without doing harm “helps the ganglia through love, hope, courage, faith, trust and good cheer”. And finally, avoid drafts and keep the body clean by a soap and water bath at least once a week!

Student Bert Parker, born 1902, son of Strawberry Point homesteader Abraham Lincoln Parker, grandfather to Chris Trump, uncle to Lee Parker and Bill White, and whose text we have been studying, lived to be nearly 82. He must have paid attention and learned his lessons well. We should do the same.