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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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 brain is thus relieved of a vast amount of work. It would be impossible for the brain to serve as a “thinking center” to control every act of our daily life. If we had to plan and to will every heart-beat or every respiration, the struggle for life would soon be given up.
The fact that the gray cells of the spinal cord can originate a countless number of reflex and automatic activities is not only of great importance in protecting the body from injury, but increases vastly the range of the activities of our daily life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is altogether an error to suppose the use of intoxicants is necessary or even desirable to promote appetite or digestion. In health, good food and a stomach undisturbed by artificial interference furnish all the conditions required. More than these is harmful. If it may sometimes seem as if alcoholic drinks arouse the appetite and invigorate digestion, we must not shut our eyes to the fact that this is only a seeming, and that their continued use will inevitably ruin both. In brief, there is no more sure foe to good appetite and normal digestion than the habitual use of alcoholic liquors. ”

“ The sense of odor gives us information as to the quality of food and drink, and more especially as to the quality of the air we breathe. Taste is at the gateway of the alimentary canal, while smell acts as the sentinel of the respiratory tract. Just as taste and flavor influence nutrition by affecting the digestive process, so the agreeable odors about us, even those of the perfumes, play an important part in the economy of life. ”

“ Vital Properties of Cells. Each cell has a life of its own. It manifests its vital properties in that it is born, grows, multiplies, decays, and at last dies. [3] During its life it assimilates food, works, rests, and is capable of spontaneous motion and frequently of locomotion. The cell can secrete and excrete substance, and, in brief, presents nearly all the phenomena of a human being.
Cells are produced only from cells by a process of self-division, consisting of a cleavage of the whole cell into parts, each of which becomes a separate and independent organism. ”

“ It cannot, like proper foods, be transformed into any element or component of the human body, but passes on, innutritious and for the most part unappropriated. Taken even into the mouth, by any person not hardened to its use, its effect is so pungent and burning as at once to demand its rejection. But if allowed to pass into the stomach, that organ immediately rebels against its intrusion, and not unfrequently ejects it with indignant emphasis. The burning sensation it produces there, is only an appeal for water to dilute it. ”

“ Regarding our bodily structure as a kind of living machine, we have studied its various parts, and found that each is designed to perform some special work essential to the well-being of the whole. As yet we have learned of no means by which these organs are enabled to adjust their activities to the needs of other tissues and other organs. We are now prepared to study a higher, a more wonderful and complex agency,—the nervous system, the master tissue, which controls, regulates, and directs every other tissue of the human body. ”

“ Even a very meagre knowledge of the structure and action of our bodies is enough to reveal the following distinctive characters: our bodies are continually breathing, that is, they take in oxygen from the surrounding air; they take in certain substances known as food, similar to those composing the body, which are capable through a process called oxidation, or through other chemical changes, of setting free a certain amount of energy. ”

“ The stiffness of the muscles which comes on during severe exercise, or the day after, are familiar results of fatigue.
This sense of fatigue should put us on guard against danger. It is a kind of regulator which serves in the ordinary actions of life to warn us not to exceed the limits of useful exercise. Fatigue summons us to rest long before all the force of the motor organs has been expended, just as the sensation of hunger warns us that we need food, long before the body has become weak from the lack of nourishment. ”

“ The Main Problems of Physiology briefly Stated. We shall learn in a subsequent chapter that the living body is continually losing energy, but by means of food is continually restoring its substance and replenishing its stock of energy. A great deal of energy thus stored up is utilized as mechanical work, the result of physical movements. We shall learn later on that much of the energy which at last leaves the body as heat, exists for a time within the organism in other forms than heat, though eventually transformed into heat. ”

“ While food remains within the alimentary canal it is as much outside of the body, so far as nutrition is concerned, as if it had never been taken inside. To be of any service the food must enter the blood; it must be absorbed. The efficient agents in absorption are the blood-vessels, the lacteals, and the lymphatics. The process through which the nutritious material is fitted to enter the blood, is called absorption. It is a process not confined, as we shall see, simply to the alimentary canal, but one that is going on in every tissue. ”

“ It plays so common and so beneficent a part in the animal economy that we scarcely appreciate this marvelous gift. Sight is essential not only to the simplest matters of daily comfort and necessity, but is also of prime importance in the culture of the mind and in the higher forms of pleasure. It opens to us the widest and the most varied range of observation and enjoyment. The pleasures and advantages it affords, directly and indirectly, have neither cessation nor bounds.
Apart from its uses, the eye itself is an interesting and instructive object of study. ”

“ The organ of speech is perhaps the most delicate and perfect motor apparatus in the whole body. It has been calculated that upwards of 900 movements per minute can be made by the movable organs of speech during reading, speaking, and singing. It is said that no less than a hundred different muscles are called into action in talking. Each part of this delicate apparatus is so admirably adjusted to every other that all parts of this most complex machinery act in perfect harmony. ”

“ Flavor is something more than taste. It is in reality a mixed sensation, in which smell and taste are both concerned, as is shown by the common observation that one suffering from a cold in the head, which blunts his sense of smell, loses the proper flavor of his food. So if a person be blindfolded, and the nose pinched, he will be unable to distinguish between an apple and an onion, if one be rubbed on the tongue after the other. As soon as the nostrils are opened the difference is at once perceived. ”

“ Most of the bodily movements, such as affect the limbs and the body as a whole, are performed by muscles under our control. These muscles make up the red flesh or lean parts, which, together with the fat, clothe the bony framework, and give to it general form and proportion. We call these muscular tissues voluntary muscles, because they usually act under the control of the will.
The internal organs, as those of digestion, secretion, circulation, and respiration, perform their functions by means of muscular activity of another kind, that is, by that of muscles not under our control. ”

“ Although there are savage races that have no knowledge of cooking, civilized man invariably cooks most of his food. It seems to be true that as nations advance in civilization they make a proportionate advance in the art of cooking.
Cooking answers most important purposes in connection with our food, especially from its influence upon health. It enables food to be more readily chewed, and more easily digested. Thus, a piece of meat when raw is tough and tenacious, but if cooked the fibers lose much of their toughness, while the connective tissues are changed into a soft and jelly-like mass. ”