Helen Keller
could not be reached through the usual channels of hearing and
seeing, but she could be reached and was transformed into the
world-renowned personality she became, entirely through the skin,
through the language of touch. The skin carries messages to and
from the brain and spinal cord, and it appears that virtually everything
that can be communicated to the central nervous system
through the eyes and ears can be transmitted through the skin. This
should not be surprising since the skin, in fact, represents the
external nervous system of which the central nervous system
represents the inturned part.2