Popular Books on Natural Science Part 3

The chyme is here mixed again with a liquid called "intestinal juice;"

it has the quality of continuing digestion until the chyme separates into two parts; one of them, a milky fluid called "chyle," contains the substance which feeds the body. The other is the solid parts not adapted to nutrition; they are thrown out by the lower opening of the "r.e.c.t.u.m."

But how is this nutritive part, the chyle, conveyed into the various parts of the body?

The intestinal ca.n.a.l is filled with extremely small vessels called "lacteal absorbents." These vessels absorb the chyle. This absorption, on account of the great length of the intestinal ca.n.a.l--in adults it is nearly thirty feet long--is, in a healthy body, accomplished very thoroughly. The real nutriment for the body is now contained in the lacteal absorbents, an infinite number of small tubes.

All these small vessels, however, converge towards the lower part of the spinal column, and uniting, form a vessel which ascends into the chest; here it empties into a large blood-vessel, the blood of which is on its way to the heart. Thrown out of the heart in another direction, the blood is pushed through the whole body.

Thus the food, after having been transformed into a juice very similar to the blood, joins the blood after a circuitous journey, and is finally mixed with, or, more properly, changed into, blood.

CHAPTER VI.

HOW THE BLOOD BECOMES THE VITAL PART OF THE BODY.

One would be well justified in calling the blood "man's body in a liquid state." For the blood is destined to become the living solid body of man.

People were astonished, when Liebig, the great naturalist, called blood the "liquid flesh;" we are correct even in going further and calling the blood "man's body in a liquid state." From blood are prepared not only muscles and flesh, but also bones, brain, fat, teeth, eyes, veins, cartilages, nerves, tendons, and even hair.

It is utterly wrong for anybody to suppose, that the const.i.tuents of all these parts are dissolved in the blood, say as sugar is dissolved in water. By no means. Water is something quite different from the sugar dissolved in it; while the blood is itself the material from which all the solid parts of the body are formed.

The blood is received into the heart, and the heart, like a pump, forces it into the lungs. There it absorbs in a remarkable manner the oxygen of the air which comes into the lungs by breathing. This blood, saturated now with oxygen, is then recalled to another part of the heart by an expansive movement of that organ.

This part of the heart contracts again and impels the oxygenated blood into the whole body by means of arteries, which branch out more and more, and become smaller and smaller, until at last they are no longer visible to the naked eye. In this manner the blood penetrates all parts of the body, and returns to the heart by means of similar thread-like veins, which gradually join and form larger veins. Having reached the heart, it is again forced into the lungs, and absorbs there more oxygen, returns to the heart, and is again circulated through the whole system.

During this double circulation of the blood from the heart to the lungs and back, and then from the heart to all parts of the body and back again--during all this, the change of particles, so remarkable in itself, is constantly going on: the exchange by which the useless and wasted matter are secreted and new substances distributed. This fact is wonderful, and its cause not yet fully explained by science; but so much is certain, that the blood when being conveyed to all parts of the human body, deposits whatever at the time may be needed there for the renewal of that part.

Thus the blood that has been formed in the child from the mother's milk, contains phosphorus, oxygen, and calcium. These substances, during the circulation of the blood, are deposited in the bones, and form "phosphate of lime," the princ.i.p.al element in the bone. In the same manner fluor and calcium are given to the teeth. The muscles, or flesh, also receive their ingredients from the blood; so do the nerves, veins, membranes, brain, and nails; also the inner organs, such as the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, intestines, and stomach.

They all, however, in return give to the blood their waste particles, which it carries to that part of the human body where they may be secreted.

If any member of the body is so bound, that the blood cannot circulate, it must decay; for the life of the body consists in its constant change and transformation, in the continual exchange of fresh substances for waste ones. But this vital exchange is only kept up by the constant circulation of the blood, which, while it decreases by being transformed into vital parts of the body, is always formed anew by our daily food.

Food is therefore very justly called "Means of Existence," and the blood may rightly be called the "Juice of Life."

CHAPTER VII.

CIRCULATION OF MATTER.

Thus we have seen that the human body is vital blood, transformed and solidified. Now, blood is food transformed; food consists of primary elements prepared and changed by nature; hence, man himself is primary matter transformed and vivified.

But the human race being thousands and thousands of years old, and there being upon the earth besides man the whole of the animal kingdom, developing, preserving, and nouris.h.i.+ng itself bodily like man; the question arises: Whence do they all come, these primary elements that are obliged forever to undergo transformation before they can become animated vital matter? Do these primary elements not incessantly decrease during the long process of their being changed into plants and consumed by man and animal, in order to form human and animal bodies afterwards?

The answer to this interesting question has been given already. The human body is not framed or created anew at every moment by food; but it is at every moment, that small particles of the human body die. These particles are returned to mother earth from which they sprang, thus going back to the primary elements.

It is not only those who are dead, that render to the earth what belongs to her, that return to nature what she gave them; but in a far greater degree it is the living, that pay their debt to nature.

Man's body is not his own; nature has lent it to him but for a short term of service; then nature wrests her loan back from him. Thus must man, spite all his pride, accept her never-ceasing offer; daily he must borrow and daily he must repay in part, until the moment comes when he borrows for the last time, the moment he expires; and dying he leaves it to those around his bedside, to pay his last debt to earth.

Is it not wonderful? His own blood is the messenger that daily carries new loans to him, and, in the shape of transformed food, of transformed elements of nature, equips his body. But his own blood is at the same time also his cas.h.i.+er, who, having rendered him service, takes the loan away, by secreting from the body elements that are thus returned to nature.

With every revolution of the blood the body is supplied with transformed food, which is immediately changed into vital parts of the body; with every return of the blood waste matter is carried off and deposited, where it may be thrown out.

The blood carries waste matter to the kidneys that they may send out of the body, in the shape of urine, waste nitrogen, mixed with a part of the phosphate of lime, that served to form bones and teeth, but is now useless. The blood, besides, secretes perspiration through the skin.

This is a liquid containing water, hence oxygen and hydrogen; but is moreover mixed with various other waste substances of the body, as for example, carbonic acid, nitrogen and fat. Chiefly, however, the blood is employed in carrying waste carbon to the lungs, so that they may, by the process of respiration, exhale carbonic acid, a gas which would prove of deadly effect if remaining in the lungs too long, or if inhaled.

The quant.i.ty of man's secretion per day is by no means small. It amounts to the fourteenth part of his own weight: nay, more--the weight of his perspiration alone, secreted partly by evaporation in the shape of gas, partly as a liquid in drops, amounts during twenty-four hours to nearly two pounds.

Secreted substances have lost all the qualities of transformed and vital matter. They return to the primary elements and serve as food princ.i.p.ally to plants, which before had offered those very same substances as food to man.

It is in this manner that the great circulation of matter in nature takes place. From the lifeless primary elements to the plant; from the plant, in the shape of food, to animal and man; from these, as waste substances, back again to the primary elements, there to begin anew a circulation, by means of which inanimate elements are reanimated, and vital elements made lifeless again; that is, life changed again into death.

And it is in this circulation that our "Nutrition," or, more precisely, the "Change of Matter in Man," consists, an important link in the life-preserving chain of nature.

CHAPTER VIII.

FOOD.

From what has been said, it must appear evident that only such dishes make good food as contain the same const.i.tuents as the blood.

To have these const.i.tuents, food must contain salt, fat, and sugar; all these ingredients must, of course, be in a certain proportion.

That water is essential for the support and renewal of the body is clear to every one. The flesh we eat, contains nearly eighty per cent. of water, and yet a man must die, if he were to eat nothing but meat and to have no water, for the reason that the eighty per cent. of water he takes in would by no means be sufficient to form all the liquids necessary for the human body.

The alb.u.men that we eat, forms in the blood chiefly the substances composing the muscular part of the flesh. But it is an error to suppose, that therefore it is absolutely necessary to eat eggs--the white of an egg is nearly pure alb.u.men--because the caseine (cheese) contains precisely the same ingredients as the alb.u.men; for we have seen before, and our readers are doubtless aware of it, that the mother's milk contains caseine, while it is entirely free of alb.u.men. Hence, he who eats plenty of caseine, as do shepherds in Switzerland, for example, scarcely needs any meat. But besides caseine there is another element, viz., the vegetable alb.u.men called gluten, which contains alb.u.minous matter; so do all glutinous plants. Peas, beans, and lentils in particular form food productive of flesh.

The salts that must be given to the blood, do not only consist in the common kitchen-salt. By the expression "Salts" are meant various combinations of substances which are usually not considered articles of food, for example, the combinations of phosphorus, iron, etc., but are not visible to the eye. They help to form bones, teeth, nails, cartilages, and hair.

The fat which we take, appears to many people to be a very important part of our food, and they believe that by eating much fat, one may become fat. But this is not correct. Ferocious animals that live only on meat and fat, do not get fat; while herbivorous animals fatten excessively, if provided with good mast, consisting of course but of plants. Yet fat is, for all this, by no means superfluous to our body.

Man needs it, because it is the fat which chiefly supports his respiration. But the fat that is needed for the body, is formed by man himself; so that but little of it need be eaten, and that little only for the purpose of helping to form new fat from sugar.

It is therefore best to consider fat and sugar as food belonging together; for the fat is formed in the body from sugar, and the small quant.i.ty of fat which we take daily is only to promote the transformation of sugar into fat.

But let no one believe that one must needs actually eat sugar; no, every food that contains starch supplies the place of sugar very well, as starch is changed, when in the body, first to sugar and then to fat. The potato contains starch and serves its purpose well; it is necessary, however, to put b.u.t.ter with it in order that the starch and sugar formed from the potato in the stomach, may be easily converted into fat.

An excellent article of food is bread, for it contains nearly all the elements of nutrition. It contains vegetable alb.u.men, and therefore is converted into flesh. It has nearly all the salts that are essential to the body; moreover, it contains starch from which fat is produced.

Therefore, by the mere addition of a little b.u.t.ter in order to make the formation of fat easier, and by drinking water besides, the human body is able to exist. On the other hand, the potato, if taken alone, is an insufficient means of nutrition. Neither would meat or alb.u.men, if taken alone, be able to preserve life.