Object Lessons on the Human Body Part 11

1. Where is your skin?

2. Tell about the skin.

3. How many skins have you?

4. Tell about the true skin.

5. What difference is there in the thickness of your outside skin?

6. What happens if the different skins be destroyed?

7. What pa.s.ses through the pores of the skin?

8. What is necessary if you would have a healthy skin?

DIRECTIONS FOR BATHING.

Bathe the whole body at least twice every week. Do not bathe when tired or after a hearty meal. After bathing _rub well_ with a coa.r.s.e towel.

QUESTIONS ON THE SKIN.

Of what use is the skin?--"It covers the muscles of the body."

What can you tell about it?--"It is flexible, elastic, porous, and absorbent."

Why do you say it is flexible?--"Because it is easily bent."

Why do you say it is porous?--"Because it is full of little holes, or pores."

Why do you say it is elastic?--"Because it will spring back after it is stretched, squeezed, twisted, or bent."

Why do you say it is absorbent?--"Because it will soak up liquids."

How many skins have you?--"Two; an outside skin, and an inner skin."

Which is the true skin?--"The inner skin."

Of what is the inner skin composed?--"Of blood-vessels and nerves."

How do you know that the outer skin has no blood-vessels?--"Because if I put a pin through the outer skin the blood does not flow out, as it would if I had cut a blood-vessel."

How do you know the outer skin has no nerves?--"Because if I put a pin through my outer skin it does not make me suffer pain, as it would if I had touched a nerve."

What gives color to the skin?--"A jelly-like substance between the inner and the outer skin."

What have you learned about the true skin?--"That it is of the same color in people of every nation."

What difference is there in the thickness of the outer skin? [See Formula.]

What pa.s.ses through the pores of the skin? [See Formula.]

What is this waste called when it comes from the surface of the skin?--"Perspiration."

When does the perspiration flow through the pores of the skin?--"All the time, if the skin is healthy."

Why do we not always see the perspiration which pa.s.ses through the pores?--"Because it does not always form drops on the surface of the skin; it generally pa.s.ses off in very fine particles."

What becomes of the fine or minute portions of perspiration which pa.s.s from the body?--"Some of these portions are absorbed by the clothing; some pa.s.s into and mix with the air around us."

What effect does the perspiration produce on the air and the clothing?--"It soon makes the air unfit to be breathed, and the clothing unfit to be worn."

What is necessary if you would have a healthy skin? [See Formula.]

Why must you wear clean clothing?--"That there may be nothing impure in the clothing for the pores of the skin to absorb."

Why should you breathe pure air?--"Because air purifies the blood, and pure blood is necessary to make a healthy skin."

How does drinking alcoholic liquors hurt the skin?--"It makes the blood impure, and impure blood makes unhealthy skin."

In what other way does drinking these liquors hurt the skin?--"It gives the skin too much work to do."

How does it give it too much work to do?--"It makes more waste substance to pa.s.s from it through the pores, in the form of perspiration."

In what other way does drinking alcoholic liquors hurt the skin?--"It makes it a bad color."

How does it make the skin a bad color?--"It stretches the little blood-vessels of the skin, and makes them too full of blood." See Appendix.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HEART.]

A, the right ventricle; B, the left ventricle; C, the right auricle D, the left auricle; E, the aorta; F, the pulmonary artery.

PART VIII.

FORMULA FOR THE LESSON ON THE HEART AND THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.

1. My heart is shaped like a cone, and placed in my chest near my breastbone, with its apex pointing downward to my left side. It beats about seventy times a minute, sending out about two ounces of blood at every beat.

2. The blood when pure is of a bright red color; it is a liquid made from food and drink.

3. It pa.s.ses from my heart to all parts of my body, through pipes called arteries; these arteries spread out through the body like branches from a tree.