Albert F. Blaisdell

“ In every tiny block of muscle there is a part which is really alive, there are parts which are becoming alive, there are parts which have been alive, and are now dying or dead; there is an upward rush from the lifeless to the living, a downward rush from the living to the dead. This is always going on, whether the muscle be quiet and at rest, or whether it be active and moving,—some of the capital of living material is being spent, changed into dead waste; some of the new food is always being raised into living capital. ”

“ And when we think of the marvelous growth of less than three centuries which, beginning with the infant colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth, has made us a nation of more than seventy millions; when we think of the wonderful record of trial and triumph and unceasing progress, and of the great and good and wise men that have laid the foundations and reared the superstructure of this mighty temple of liberty,—we must be blind indeed and ungrateful beyond expression not to recognize with devout thankfulness the guiding hand of a beneficent Providence. ”

“ Abraham Lincoln, the great and good President, whose heart had bled for the nation's suffering, who had never held a trace of bitter feeling towards the South, was shot down by an assassin!
Instantly the nation was plunged into the deepest sorrow; joy ended in grief, delight was turned to mourning. Ninety thousand Union soldiers had been slain, but this last sacrifice overshadowed all. Never before was a great nation shrouded in a sorrow so deep. Thousands mourned, as for the loss of a personal friend. ”

“ The nervous system, in its properties and mode of action, is distinct from all the other systems and organs, and it shares with no other organ or tissue the power to do its special work. It is the medium through which all impressions are received. It connects all the parts of the body into an organism in which each acts in harmony with every other part for the good of the whole. It animates and governs all movements, voluntary or involuntary,—secretion, excretion, nutrition; in fact all the processes of organic life are subject to its regulating power. ”

“ What Physiology should Teach us. The study of physiology is not only interesting, but it is also extremely useful. Every reasonable person should not only wish to acquire the knowledge how best to protect and preserve his body, but should feel a certain profound respect for an organism so wonderful and so perfect as his physical frame. For our bodies are indeed not ourselves, but the frames that contain us,—the ships in which we, the real selves, are borne over the sea of life. ”

“ Jones is now here, now there, seeing all, controlling all, and mixing with the bravest, now training some gun, now pulling at some rope or cheering some lagging sailor lad. His strong will and sturdy pluck give new life to his men. They cheer as their shot begin to tell. The air is filled with the crash of cannon, the rattle of pistols, the orders of officers, the yells of the crews, and the groans of the dying.
The American flag is obscured with smoke, so that Captain Pearson, not seeing it, shouts, "Are you ready to surrender?" ”

“ He must be indeed a poor navigator who is not zealous to adorn and strengthen his ship, that it may escape the rocks of disease and premature decay, and that the voyage of his life may be long, pleasant, and successful.
But above these thoughts there rises another,—that in studying physiology we are tracing the myriad lines of marvelous ingenuity and forethought, as they appear at every glimpse of the work of the Divine Builder. However closely we study our bodily structure, we are, at our best, but imperfect observers of the handiwork of Him who made us as we are. ”

“ The Story of our Country.—We are sure that every intelligent and patriotic American youth must like to read the story of our country's life. To a boy or girl of good sense no work of fiction can surpass it in interest or power.
How delightful to let the imagination summon up the forms and the deeds of the fearless Norse sailors who dared to cross the unknown seas in their frail and tiny vessels without compass and without charts! How interesting the oft-told but ever-fresh narrative of the intrepid Columbus and his memorable first voyage into and across the "Sea of Darkness"! ”

“ Thus, while exercise is a duty, rest is equally imperative.
The eye, when exactingly used in fine work, should have frequent intervals of rest in a few moments of darkness by closing the lids. The brain, when urged by strenuous study, should have occasional seasons of rest by a dash of cold water upon the forehead, and a brief walk with slow and deep inspirations of fresh air. The muscles, long cramped in a painful attitude, should be rested as often as may be, by change of posture or by a few steps around the room. ”

“ It was felt that a death-blow had been given to England's efforts to crush the colonies.
The victory at Yorktown practically ended the war. It took several years for the country to recover from the wreck and ruin wrought, to frame the machinery of our new government, and to lay the solid foundations of this grand edifice of constitutional liberty. In all this work of nation-building Washington was a prominent actor, no less sagacious as a statesman than as a skilled warrior. ”

“ When they neared the coast a driving storm compelled them to change their course, so that instead of going up the Hudson River as they had intended, they were forced into Massachusetts Bay, as it is now called, and along the icy shores of Cape Cod.
All the coast was white with snow, and the future looked cheerless and dark. There were no light-houses to warn them of dangerous shoals, no life-saving men patrolling the beach to help shipwrecked mariners. No one stood on the barren sandy shore to welcome them; they felt that they were indeed strangers in a strange land. ”

“ But the tortured brain instantly reveals the calamity and the shame, while the only one who may not fully realize it is the victim himself. Besides this, the injuries inflicted upon other organs affect only the body, but here they drag down the mind, ruin the morals, and destroy the character.
The brain is indeed the most important organ of the body, as it presides over all the others. It is the lofty seat of power and authority. ”

“ Every thoughtful young person must have asked himself a hundred questions about the problems of human life: how it can be that the few articles of our daily food—milk, bread, meats, and similar things—build up our complex bodies, and by what strange magic they are transformed into hair, skin, teeth, bones, muscles, and blood. ”

“ We find him a studious boy, early able to write a good hand and to draw maps and charts for mariners visiting his home. He loves the sea, listens eagerly to old sailors' "yarns," weaves their fancies and legends into his day-dreams, and is fired with ambition to go in search of strange lands. How shall he realize his visions? Who will believe in him?
At the age of fourteen he becomes a sailor. He sails south along the African coast, and north as far as England, and even to Iceland. Always observing, studying, planning, the ardent, thoughtful boy grows up an earnest, thoughtful man. ”

“ Now, as the proteid part of its molecule is the most important constituent of living matter, it is evident that proteid food is an absolute necessity. If our diet contained no proteids, the tissues of the body would gradually waste away, and death from starvation would result. All the food-stuffs are necessary in one way or another to the preservation of perfect health, but proteids, together with a certain proportion of water and inorganic salts, are absolutely necessary for the bare maintenance of animal life—that is, for the formation and preservation of living protoplasm. ”

“ The American people felt that they had indeed lost their protector, the Father of his Country.
To Americans his memory will always be precious. His birthday is celebrated every year throughout our broad land; and the bell of every steamer that glides along the quiet Potomac tolls as it slowly passes Mount Vernon, the last resting-place of George Washington! ”

“ The great importance of rest for the sick is not so generally recognized as its value warrants. If it is worry and not work that breaks down the mental and physical health of the well, how much more important is it that the minds and bodies of the sick should be kept at rest, free from worry and excitement! Hence the skilled nurse does her best to aid in restoring the sick to a condition of health by securing for her patient complete rest both of mind and body. To this end, she skillfully removes all minor causes of alarm, irritation, or worry. ”

“ Penn sailed in an open boat up the broad and beautiful Delaware River until he came to the place on which his chief city or capital was soon to be laid out. The "Quaker King," for thus he was called, was received with great joy by the people. They knew that he would keep his promise to secure full freedom of conscience and speech for all. He called it a "free colony for all mankind."
No person was compelled, as were the Pilgrims of New England, to attend any church or practise any form of religious worship. Only murder and treason were punished with death. ”

“ While it is true that the vegetable albumens furnish all that is really needed for the bodily health, animal food of some kind is an economical and useful addition to the diet. Races of men who endure prolonged physical exertion have discovered for themselves, without the teaching of science, the great value of meat. Hence the common custom of eating meat with bread and vegetables is a sound one. It is undoubtedly true that the people of this country, as a rule, eat meat too often and too much at a time. The judicious admixture of different classes of foods greatly aids their digestibility. ”

“ A few hundred settlers, and perhaps a hundred log cabins, made up a village where now stands the great city of Cincinnati. Indians and buffaloes roamed over the rich plains of the West which to-day furnish grain for Europe. Only seven of the states then had well-defined boundaries. Thousands of the marvelous inventions and discoveries which have added so much to the comfort and convenience of life had at that time no existence. ”

“ In their living cells chemical changes are constantly going on; energy, on the whole, is running down; complex substances are being broken up into simpler combinations. So long as life lasts, food must be brought to the tissues, and waste products carried away from them. It is impossible to move a single muscle, or even to think for one moment, without some minute part of the muscular or brain tissue becoming of no further use in the body. The transformation of dead matter into living tissue is the ever-present miracle which life presents even in its lowest forms. ”

“ The Country about Boston aroused.—An hour or two before the British troops began to cross in boats to Charlestown, two horsemen, who had been watching for the lantern lights in the steeple, dashed out on swift steeds by different roads towards Lexington and Concord: William Dawes went like an arrow over Boston Neck, and then through Roxbury and Watertown, while Paul Revere across the water sped as if on wings from Charlestown. Their swift horses' hoofs clattered sharply in the quiet of this beautiful [Pg 160] night, striking fire from the stones in the darkness. ”

“ The only condition absolutely necessary to the purification of the blood is an organ having a delicate membrane, on one side of which is a thin sheet of blood, while the other side is in such contact with the air that an interchange of gases can readily take place. The demand for oxygen is, however, so incessant, and the accumulation of carbon dioxid is so rapid in every tissue of the human body, that an All-Wise Creator has provided a most perfect but complicated set of machinery to effect this wonderful purification of the blood. ”

“ The colonists received with unbounded delight the tidings of Franklin's masterly diplomacy and the repeal of the Stamp Act. Bells were rung, bonfires blazed, and cannon were fired. "I never heard so much noise in my life," wrote Franklin's daughter Sallie to him; "the very children seem distracted."
Franklin now watched with honest shrewdness and a penetrating mind the many attempts of the British government to tax the Americans. Other colonies recognized his ability, and New Jersey, Georgia, and Massachusetts appointed him as their agent. ”

“ The eye, the outer instrument of vision, is a most beautiful and ingenious machine. All its parts are arranged with such a delicate adjustment to one another, and such an exquisite adaptation of every part to the great object of the whole, that the eye is properly regarded as one of the wonders of nature. ”

“ The free ocean, the immense forests, the eternal mountains, all seemed to teach that here man was to be his own master; that in this wide, new country, the people were destined to rule themselves, and not bound to obey some stupid and obstinate king three thousand miles away.
The colonies along the coast, having the same language, with similar laws and customs, and having shared like sufferings from hunger and cold and the Indians, were naturally drawn together by a feeling of brotherhood. ”

“ In bathing we have two distinct objects in view,—to keep the skin clean and to impart vigor. These are closely related, for to remove from the body worn-out material, which tends to injure it, is a direct means of giving vigor to all the tissues. Thus a cold bath acts upon the nervous system, and calls out, in response to the temporary abstraction of heat, a freer play of the general vital powers. Bathing is so useful, both locally and constitutionally, that it should be practiced to such an extent as experience proves to be beneficial. ”

“ The eloquent words of the Declaration of Independence had been pronounced, but it was left for Washington and his little army to make it good.
England at this time was the most powerful nation in the world. Her navy was large, and her army was fully equipped and well drilled. Her resources were vast, and she had now made up her mind to crush the "rebels" in America. To men in foreign lands it seemed madness for the feeble colonies in America to resist the royal power of England.
The Declaration of Independence after a time was signed by fifty-six delegates from all the colonies. ”