WHAT CAN THE HUMAN ENGINE DO?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 332, 26 January 1909, Page 4

WHAT CAN THE HUMAN ENGINE DO?

THE MUST KJ'TICIF.XT MACIIIXE IX EXISTENCE. In the course of sin article tin "The Human Engine," in "Chambers' Jutirluil," Mr. Ami row Wilson discloses 1 Inwork our body is iit|ml.lc of doing, mitl tliu power it fan develop tin the fuel with which it is supplied, lie sirs; 'J'lli, uniVitiiin can be answered ivllli a very near approach lo correctness ■ ileal', indeed. usMVe can ever approach exactitude wlien dealing with tile colltiiniiillv carving eondition-i of a living lin.lv. ' .Mali's Imilily work is divisible illtti two categories.' First, lie lias to produce, heat, itself li large item in the working expense, and to provide power for the internal work of the frame. The heart has to be kept working, tire muscles of breathing have lo he provided for in Hie n-iiv of eucrgy-siipplv. ami even tile, iii-t of digesting fond to repair the lmilv involves the expenditure of energy, illustrating thus the burning of the physiological candle at both cutis. The nccoud phase of work done liv the bodily engine is represented by that which is external—that is. the work our muscles and the daily labor ill which we may otherwise lie engaged. The body's own energy expended in maintaining heat and in providing for the upkeep of its internal work has been calculated at about two thousand eight, hundred fool-tons per day. l'ut into ji big lift, so as to speak, this amount of work would raise two thousand eight hundred tons weight on'" foot high. The external work on the same basis is given as amounting on the average to about three hundred foot-tons 'daily, while a. very hard worker may develop from five hundred to six hundred foot-tons, lint it would seem that even to get the bare outside work of the human engine done we need to develop actually about live times its amount, plus that needed for the internal work. So Unit if we are to allow three hundred foot-lons for Hie outside labor of the body, we have really to provide for one thousand live hundred units, and'to add lo thi- the Iwo thousand eight hundred re«|iii'.ed for the boilvV own affairs, making a grand lotal of some four thousand three hundred units lo be generated every day we live. AX I'X'OXOMICAL TWCTXI?. N'uw. though these figures seem large, they nevertheless represent economical work when all is said and done. A man's lotal daily income of food, water, and air amounts to about cigiit and onetliird pounds only; yet tint of this modest supply his body generates power far exceeding in amount and in direct and economic use that produced by th" best engines of his own invention. The wn,le seen in the engine, due lo friction ami lo loss of power in gelling at its work, mi to speak, is largely obviated in man's own body. M'hile only a small percentage of power for the coal burnt is returned to us by our finest engines, our own hotly yields a very generous amount indeed,' having regard to its small fuel consumption. If we think that n. man's heart alone, in twentyfour hours, expends one hundred and twentv foot-tons of energy-force sufliHcnt 'to raise that Weight one foot liigh—we may see how admirably living Suture orders her wavs of income anil expenditure. The profit, in the shape of "the power of doing work,'' we gel out of our food and drink and air is runlly a verv handsome one. Mo>t wonderful of all is it for us to consider lhal all man's achievements, physical and mental alike, represent pari of lie profit accruing from (Ire tiaiisformnliou of what he cats into what he does.