Science. The Stream of Life.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1997, 25 April 1885, Page 6 (Supplement)

Science. The Stream of Life.

" Max, know thyself 1 " is a most wiae as well as a most old injunction. It is also a most unheeded injunction. For if there be one thing more than another of which the average man or woman knows almost nothing, it is self. Many a man will ask nothing better than to discourse on the subject of himself by the long and weary hour, but this ia not becauae he has any knowledge of himself, but rather the reverse. As a rule, the person who selects himself fora text knows nothing whatever of his subject, else he would talk of something more interesting. But it is not for ignorance of hia mental and moral oharaoteriatics that a man ia blameworthy ; it is for his ignorance of his physioal characteristics. I do believe that thouaanda of human beinga go through the world without giving one thought to the wonderful and intrioate machines whioh they, themselves, are. Crowds will gape at an automaton made by a human being, and wonder how it is constructed. The ingenuity of the maker will be praised, and the few and simple movements of the figure loudly applauded. And yet the man himself, the most beautiful, the most wonderful piece of machinery ever produced, scarce gives himaelf a moment's thaught. Look at that right hand of youra 1 Open it. Shut it. How is it done ? Did your brain have anything to do with that apparently simple action ? How many agents did you employ in the opening and closing of your hand ? Or perhaps you do not even know that nerves, muscles, and bones were set at work to perform that service for you; or that in performing that service they used up a certain quantity of fuel, or blood. Why do you eat ? Because you are hungry. It would serve you right, almost, if you were not allowed to eat again until you could tell what was to become cf the food you ate. What happens when you cut your finger? Blood flows and you feel a pain. Why does blood flow ? Why do you feel a pain ? How do you know there is any pain ? You feel it? What do you mean by feeling pain? Man, atudy yourself. You are well worth studying. I do not say know yourself, for many of ua are not worth knowing. If you have never given any thought to your physical being you may be deterred now by the fear that you are too complicated to comprehend. Never fear. Take, for example, the bones in your body. There are not many —only two hundred and eight. You need not know all the Latin nameH, but you may easily know what they look like, and how they are joined. This is not a dry study I it ia a very entertaining one. Take the blood, for example. Begin with that beefsteak. Interesting from the outset you see. You chew it, swallow it. The stomach mixes acid with it and converts it into a pulpy mass called chyme. This goes into the intestines, mixes with juices there, and is turned into what is called chyle. The good material out of this taken up by hundreds of tiny canals which convey it to the veins, where it mingles with the blood, which is on its way to the heart, which it enters on tho right side. The heart pumps this blood into the lunga, and theto it throws off its impurities and is freshened by the pure air whioh you have, or should have, breathed in. The purified blood now finds its way through » network of fine, hair-like tubes into veins which carry it baok into the left side of the heart. From there it is forced through the arteries whioh run through the body. From the arteries the pure blood finds its way to the veins by the way of a net-work of fino tubes similar to those in the lungs and called capillaries. Once in the veins the blood goes back to the heart and right on through the same process already described. This pure blood, it must be understood, is full of the good material taken from your beefsteak. In the capillaries last spokan of thia good material ia deposited for distribution where it is needed. At the same time, used up matorial, the ashes, as it were, haß been gathered up in the same oapillaries where the tissues have deposited it, and the now impure blood goes back to the heart and lungs. The pure blood is red and the impure blood is blue. Perhapa it will be noticed that the blue blood is the impure sort. Persons who may be inclined to boast of blue blood will do well to bear thia in mind. The arteries carry blood away from the heart and tho veina carry blood to it. Now it will be understood why it is dangerous to cut an artery, particularly aa it takes but a few moments for all the blood in the body to pass through the heart. It used to be thought that the blood found its way through the body in » general sort of

a way, very much aa the water in the ocean keeps moving all the time. And for a long time it was supposed that the arteries were full of air. Dr. William Harvey was the discoverer of the manner in which the blood circulates. He lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and first began to tell what he knew about bload in the year 1610, the same year in which Shakespeare died. Lord Bacon and King Charles I. were among the patients of Doctor Harvey, who also had the honor cf dissecting the body of Thomas Parr, who was believed to have had the misfortune to live ono hundred and fifty-two years.