Physical body

“ The properties and characteristics of the human body, as a physical structure, are not altered nor affected by the fact that it is composed of live tissues, such as bones, muscles, arteries, veins, nerves, etc., and of live organs as the brain, heart, lungs, liver, stomach, kidneys, etc., for the body and every organ and part of it has the same length, breadth, thickness, [29] and weight, whether living or dead, at least, until disintegration sets in. ”

“ By means of the special sensations, a knowledge of the physical surroundings of the body is gained, and through the organic sensations the needs of the body and the state of the various organs are indicated. ”

“ Our space forbids that we should discuss this question in reference to every organ of the body; but if there be anyone part more than another which requires constant exercise, it is the skin. This membrane, which envelopes the whole body, performs functions of the highest physical and moral importance. ”

“ Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body. They are infra-human, a kind of vegetation. I sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of them going on about me, as a man may become conscious of some of the processes of digestion in a morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called. ”

“ “The interpenetration of man’s three bodies is expressed in many ways through his threefold nature,” my great guru went on. “In the wakeful state on earth a human being is conscious more or less of his three vehicles. When he is sensuously intent on tasting, smelling, touching, listening, or seeing, he is working principally through his physical body. Visualizing or willing, he is working mainly through his astral body. His causal medium finds expression when man is thinking or diving deep in introspection or meditation; ”

“ Every one has, of course, a general familiarity with the state and actions of his own and other bodies in health, yet a more exact knowledge of the movements of respiration, circulation, secretion, etc., as well as the form, size, and relative location of all the organs of the body, is needed. ”

“ Don’t you know that physiologists themselves admit that the human body is composed of eighty-five per cent water and fifteen per cent ordinary salts? Can such a combination have intelligence and sensation? Do you still believe that life is dependent upon lungs, stomach, or liver? ”

“ Among the other great acquisitions gradually evolved we may notice: a well-developed head with sense-organs, the establishment of large internal surfaces such as the digestive and absorptive wall of the food-canal, the origin of quickly contracting striped muscle and of muscular appendages, the formation of blood as a distributing medium throughout the body, from which all the parts take what they need and to which they also contribute. ”

“ Just as the conceptual activity has as its bodily foundation the brain, with the nervous appendages, so it is volitional activity which is based on processes taking place in the muscular region of the body and in those organs which provide the body's metabolism. ”

“ Not only so, but—although it is a little hard for you to understand how this could have happened—the whole brain and nervous system is made up of folds of the skin tucked in from the surface of the back; so that we can say that the skin, with the organs that belong to it and have grown from it—the eyes, nose, ears, brain, and nerves—forms the most wonderful part of the body. Everything that we know of the world outside of us is told us by the skin and the look-out organs that have grown out of it. ”

“ What are all the organs and tissues for, and what takes place within the parts that are actually alive? Physiology attempts to answer questions of this nature. It therefore stands in contrast with anatomy and is supplementary to it. The activities of the body are varied and depend on life for their manifestation — they may be called vital activities. Physiology embraces a study of them all. This subject began to attract the attention of the ancient medical men, who wished to fathom the activities of the body in order to heal it in disease. ”

“ Now, to aid this, the whole organic structure must be taken into consideration—the limbs, senses, lungs, stomach, and above all, the condition of the spine; for each and all of those organs must be in a perfectly healthy state, and must perform their functions properly, or the brain will not be in a condition to receive and retain the impressions transmitted to it.
Nature is always beneficent, and is ever striving to correct and amend the evils inflicted upon the body by the vicious habits which are almost universally indulged in. ”

“ Only slight study is sufficient to reveal the fact that each organ performs a work which benefits the body as a whole. In other words, just as the organ itself is a part of the body, the work which it does is a part of the necessary work which the body has to do. ”

“ One whose hands, feet, sides, back, nipples, teeth, shoulders, mouth, and forehead are large ; whose arms, fingers, breath, and eyesight are long, brows and chest are broad ; legs, genital organ, and neck short, voice and navel are deep ; whose vigour is great, whose head protrudes backward, whose joints, veins, and arteries are buried in flesh, whose limbs are strongly built ; who is cool and collected, free from disease, and has hair growing on the ears ; whose body, intellect, and experience grow gradually, — such a man is expected to enjoy long life. ”

“ Nearly everyone learns in school the main facts about the construction of the body; that there is a bony skeleton which supports the softer parts; that motions are made by muscles; that sense organs inform us as to what is going on in the world around; that the brain is the seat of the mind; that heart, lungs, stomach, kidneys, and other organs contribute in various ways to our well-being. ”

“ So the vital property is the primum mobile to which we must ascend, whether we consider the phenomena of respiration, of digestion, of secretion, circulation, inflammation, fevers, &c.—In giving existence to every body, nature has imprinted upon it a certain number of properties, that particularly characterize it, and by means of which it contributes in its own manner, to all the phenomena that are developed, succeed, and continually connect themselves in the universe. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If we take for comparison those that assimilate to our general form, anatomy shows us that our organs are the same as theirs; we find in them muscle for muscle, nerve for nerve, that is found in man himself. Physiology, in turn, has demonstrated that, in the body of man, the organs, the muscles, the nerves, have the same animal functions. ”

“ It is important here to emphasise that some elementary knowledge of hygiene, physiology, and anatomy is necessary for the intelligent appreciation of the requirements of the body as to clothing, and of its alterations in shape when muscles are tense or relaxed. ”

“ How, for instance, shall we account for the perpetual motion of the above-mentioned organs, viz. the cerebrum and cerebellum, the heart and the lungs, the stomach and the intestines, &c.; all which organs, during the bodily life of man, are in a constant state of activity, uninfluenced alike by the assent or dissent of their proprietor, and continuing their motions without any interruption from the general motions of the body, be they ever so violent? ”

“ There is a trinity in our anatomy. Three systems, to which all the organs are directly or indirectly subsidiary, divide and control the body. First, there is the nutritive system, composed of stomach, intestines, liver, pancreas, glands, and vessels, by which food is elaborated, effete matter removed, the blood manufactured, and the whole organization nourished. This is the commissariat. Secondly, there is the nervous system, which co-ordinates all the organs and functions; which enables man to entertain relations with the world around him, and with his fellows ”

“ All of the vital functions are active; the large chest-room, the vigorous heart, the firm muscles, insure a bodily activity that keeps the operations of organic life in unconscious and easy motion. Digestion, assimilation, excretion, and elimination, work in harmony and with vigor.
Mentally, this type is the reflection of its physical traits. The rich blood, by its active circulation through the brain, causes vivid and active mental action. The general cast of the mind is never gloomy. ”

“ To understand the nature of disease we must understand health, and the understanding of the healthy body means the having a knowledge of its structure and of the way in which its manifold actions are performed, which is what is technically termed human anatomy and human physiology. The physiologist again must needs possess an acquaintance with physics and chemistry, inasmuch as physiology is, to a great extent, applied physics and chemistry. ”

“ Every atom of our flesh intelligence and it is under the influence of every thought we think. Thoughts establish a force or action in our tissues and upon our own thought force is quality of our physical flesh. ”

“ Internally it reproduces the mould of all the organs which constitute the framework of the human body. We see it, in short, move, speak, take nourishment; perform, in a word, all the great functions of animal life. ”

“ To regard all things and principles of things as inconstant modes or fashions has more and more become the tendency of modern thought. Let us begin with that which is without—our physical life. Fix upon it in one of its more exquisite intervals, the moment, for instance, of delicious recoil from the flood of water in summer heat. What is the whole physical life in that moment but a combination of natural elements to which science gives their names? But these elements, phosphorus and lime and delicate fibres, are present not in the human body alone: ”

“ Animal heat and muscular and nervous power are dependent upon motions of the minutest particles composing the body. The body is composed of fluid and semi-fluid matter, permitting great freedom of motion. Health requires that there shall be a constant change of place, an active transmission of material to and from vital organs and parts, through the medium of [pg 371] blood-vessels, as well as outside such vessels ”

“ This force is influenced and modified in its action, when exercised in the regulation of nutrition, growth, and reproduction of tissues, by the passions and emotions of the mind. All the secretions and functions of the body are more or less susceptible of being accelerated, retarded or modified by the psychical relations of mind and matter. ”

“ Between these various surfaces is the real interior of the body, in which there are many sorts of living tissues,2 each, of which, in addition to maintaining itself, has some function necessary for the maintenance of the body as a whole. ”

“ In order to show more clearly how each part is subservient to these ends, I shall give a short account of the structure of the human body, but I must premise, that the nature of this course will prevent my entering minutely into anatomical detail. All that can be done is, to give such a general outline of anatomy and physiology, as will furnish individuals with so much knowledge of themselves, as may enable them to guard against habitual sickness. ”

“ For like reasons, we are compelled to believe that the heart, lungs, stomach, liver, kidneys, muscles, arteries, veins, nerves, and other organs and parts of the body are directly and specially made by the Creator. ”

“ Now, health being dependent upon the due and regular performance of the vital functions by the several physiological organs of the body, any excessive development of these organs, or undue manifestation of force on their part, must, of necessity, be contrary to the general health of the body, and be productive of disease and pain. ”

“ The Organ and its Work.—A most interesting question relating to the work of the organ is this: Does the organ work for its own benefit or for the benefit of the body as a whole? Does the hand, for example, grasp for itself or in order that the entire body may come into possession? ”

“ Everyone knows the doctor, and everyone knows that physiology deals with the ‘functions of different organs of the body’; but the public rarely meet the physiologist, except in the fanciful caricatures of his enemies, which though frequently personal are rarely accurate. ”

“ Those who copy every­thing else that we do let us alone in this, and make their corsets now with as little regard to the anatomical structure of the body and the requirements of the vital organs, as if science had made no progress nor art any advancement. ”

“ But further, the bodily life of man, it is evident, would be imperfect, because useless, was not the above union of the heart and lungs attended with operation, by acting on the body, and thereby supplying it with power to fulfil the various ends and purposes of bodily and natural life. ”