Word: nervously
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...making San Francisco's opera thrive. For his first season (1923) there was not even an adequate stage. Quick to gamble, he spent $20,000 fixing up the old Auditorium, began importing high-priced singers. When that first season ended Impresario Merola went to the hospital with a nervous breakdown. But San Franciscans had liked his performances, wanted more, formed an opera association with 2,500 founder-members who were never called upon for more than $50 or $100 apiece...
...Loewi discovered, Dr. Dale proved, that nervous impulses are the result of chemical action, not of electrical action as had formerly been supposed. Dr. Loewi might have had all the credit for this fundamental physiological work, if he were a more persistent researcher. A rich, energetic, glib man of medium height, he rises each morning at 5 o'clock, is in his laboratory exactly one hour later. Assistants do all the actual experimenting, for Dr. Loewi is remarkably clumsy, breaking almost everything he touches. This characteristic almost ruined Dr. Loewi's career a decade ago. He asserted that...
Seldom does Dr. Loewi spend more than two years on a subject. This inconstancy gave Sir Henry Dale, a big, diligent Englishman, opportunity to pioneer on his own with many a discovery in the chemistry of nerves. One of the subtlest products of nervous reactions is acetylcholine. Sir Henry found this evanescent substance, when isolated from the body, to be a colorless, odorless, crystalline powder. It causes capillaries and small arteries to dilate, thus lowering blood pressure and slowing the action of an overworking heart. It relaxes smooth muscles, thus relieving spasms of the bladder, ureters, uterus, intestines...
Lest childless couples disbelieve that experience, Dr. Perkins cited another experience "which is frequent enough to be called common." "I refer," wrote Dr. Perkins, "to the stimulating effect upon the nervous centres controlling the reproductive apparatus which is experienced as a result of the proximity of a little child. The maternal instincts, not quite the same as but certainly very closely associated with the reproductive urge, are definitely aroused by this contact. Perhaps the reason why it has not been brought to general notice more forcibly is that the people who have experienced this sensation are a little ashamed...
...Anxiously his attorney informed the court that Mr. Chrysler had wired his willingness to appear in person next day if necessary. Angrily Judge W. Calvin Chesnut snapped that Mr. Chrysler had best consider that it was necessary. Chief Gabrielson: "All citizens are equal under the Law." Next day a nervous Mr. Chrysler faced a scowling judge and in barely audible tones confessed to the unplugged gun charge. "Of course I should have known," said he, "but Pritchett is supposed to look out for these things...