THE ORGANS OF RESPIRATION.
The principal organs of respiration consist of larynx, trachea, bronchi, lungs.
The larynx is affixed to the upper end of the windpipe, and is not only the entrance for air into the respiratory organs from the pharynx, but also the organ of voice.
The trachea measures from four inches to four inches and a half in length, and from three-quarters of an inch to one inch in width; but its length and width are liable to continual variations, according to the position of the larynx and the direction of the neck.
The trachea divides into two branches, called bronchi, right and left. The right bronchus, wider and shorter than the left, measuring about an inch in length, passes outwards almost horizontally into the root of the right lung on a level with the fourth dorsal vertebra. The left bronchus, smaller in diameter but longer than the right, being nearly two inches in length, inclines downwards and outwards to reach the root of the right lung, which it enters on a level with the fifth dorsal vertebra—that is, about an inch lower than the right bronchus.
The lungs, placed one on the right and the other on the left of the heart and large vessels, occupy by far the larger part of the cavity of the chest, and during life are always in accurate contact with the internal surface of its walls. Each lung is attached at a comparatively small part of its flattened inner or median surface by a part named the root and by a thin membranous fold, which is continued downwards from it.
The pleuræ are serous membranes forming two shut sacs, quite distinct from each other, which line the right and left side of the thorax, forming by their approximation in the middle line the mediastinal partition, and are reflected each upon the root and over the entire free surface of the corresponding lung.
The lungs. Each lung is irregularly pyramidal or conical, with its base downwards, and one side (the inner) much flattened. The broad concave base is of a semi-lunar form, and rests upon the arch of the diaphragm. The apex is blunt, and reaches into the root of the neck, above the first rib, where it is separated from the first portion of the subclavian artery by the pleural membrane.
The lungs vary much in size and weight, according to the quantity of blood and mucous or serous fluid they may happen to contain, which is greatly influenced by the circumstances immediately preceding death, as well as other causes. The weight of both lungs together, as generally stated, ranges from 30 to 48 ounces, the more prevalent weights being found between 36 and 42 ounces. The proportion borne by the right lung to the left is nearly 22 ounces to 20, taking the combined weight of the two at 42 ounces. The lungs are not only absolutely heavier in the male than in the female, but appear to be heavier in proportion to the weight of the body. The general ratio between the weight of the lungs and body in the adult fluctuates between one to thirty-five and one to fifty.
The average weight in twenty-nine cases, male and female:
| Male. | Female. | |
| Right lung, | 24 ounces. | 17 ounces. |
| Left lung, | 21 ounces.,, | 15 ounces.,, |
| 45 ounces. | 32 ounces. |
The proportionate weight of the lungs to the body is:
| Male. | Female. |
| 1 to 37 | 1 to 34 |
The substance of the lungs is of a light porous spongy texture, and when healthy is buoyant in water. Specific gravity, 0.126; deprived of air, 1.056.
When pressed between the fingers, the lungs impart a crepitant sensation, which is accompanied by a peculiar noise, both effects being caused by the air contained in the tissue. On cutting the lung the same crepitation is heard.
The pulmonary tissues are endowed with great elasticity, in consequence of which the lungs collapse to about one-third of their bulk when the thorax is opened.
The root of each lung consists of bronchi, arteries, and veins, together with the nerves, lymphatic vessels, and glands, connected by areolar tissue, and inclosed in a sheath of the pleura.
Respiration consists of an expiration and an inspiration. The air passes in through the nose or mouth, through the larynx, trachea, bronchi, into the lungs.
Inspiration: By the contraction of certain muscles, the cavity of the thorax is enlarged; in consequence the pressure of the air within the lungs becomes less than that of the air outside the body, and this difference of pressure causes a rush of air through the trachea into the lungs until an equilibrium of pressure is established between the air inside and that outside the lungs. This constitutes inspiration.
Expiration: Upon the relaxation of the inspiratory muscles (the muscles whose contraction has brought about the thoracic expansion), the elasticity of the chest walls and lungs, aided by the contraction of certain muscles and other circumstances, causes the chest to return to its original size, or even become smaller. In consequence of this the pressure within the lungs now becomes greater than that outside, and thus air rushes out of the trachea, until equilibrium is once more established. This constitutes expiration.
The inspiratory and expiratory act together form a respiration.
The fresh air introduced into the upper part of the pulmonary passages by the inspiratory movement contains more oxygen and less carbonic acid than the old air previously present in the lungs. By diffusion the new or tidal air, as it is frequently called, gives up the oxygen to, and takes carbonic acid from, the old or stationary air, and thus when it leaves the chest in expiration has been the means both of introducing oxygen into and of removing carbonic acid from it. By this ebb and flow of the tidal air and the diffusion between it and the stationary air, the air in the lungs is being continually renewed, through the alternate expansion and contraction of the chest. In what may be considered normal breathing, the respiratory act is repeated about seventeen times a minute; and the duration of the inspiration as compared with that of the expiration and such pause as exists, is about as ten to twelve.
When the ordinary respiratory movements prove insufficient to effect the necessary changes in the blood, their rhythm and character become changed. Normal respiration gives place to labored respiration, and this in turn to dyspnœa, which unless some restorative event occurs terminates in asphyxia.
Changes of the air in respiration:
1. The temperature of the expired air is variable, but under ordinary circumstances is higher than that of the inspired air.
2. The expired air is loaded with aqueous vapor.
3. The expired air contains about 4 to 6 per cent less oxygen and about 4 per cent more carbonic acid than the inspired air, the quantity of nitrogen suffering but little change. Thus:
| Oxygen. | Nitrogen. | Carbon. | |||||
| Inspired | air contains | 20 | .81 | 79 | .15 | .04 | |
| Expired | air,, contains,, | 16 | .033 | 79 | .557 | 4 | .380 |
While the air in passing in and out of the lungs is thus robbed of a portion of its oxygen, and loaded with a certain quantity of carbonic acid, the blood as it streams along the pulmonary capillaries undergoes important correlative changes. As it leaves the right ventricle it is venous blood of a dark purple or maroon color; when the blood has passed through the lungs and falls into the left auricle, it is arterial blood of a bright scarlet hue. In passing through the capillaries of the body from the left to the right side of the heart, it is again changed from the arterial to the venous condition.
The average composition of this gas in the two kinds of blood is as follows. From 100 volumes may be obtained:
| Oxygen. | Carbonic Acid. | Nitrogen. | |
| Of arterial blood, | 20 (16) vol. | 39 (30) vol. | 1 to 2 vol. |
| Of venous blood, | 8–12 (6 to 10) | 46 (35) vol. | 1 to 2 vol. |
Oxygen plays a most important role on this terrestrial globe. Life, health, and food depend on it. This element penetrates, pervades, everything and everywhere, unites and disunites with all other elements, preserves and destroys. While its absence from a living being, whether plant or animal, is death.
When a liquid such as water is exposed to an atmosphere containing a gas such as oxygen, some of the oxygen will be dissolved in the water, that is to say will be absorbed from the atmosphere. The quantity which is so absorbed will depend on the quantity of oxygen which is in the atmosphere above; that is to say, on the pressure of the oxygen; the greater the pressure of the oxygen, the larger the amount which will be absorbed. If, on the other hand, water containing a good deal of oxygen dissolved in it be exposed to an atmosphere containing little or no oxygen, the oxygen will escape from the water into the atmosphere.
CHAPTER XX.
DIGESTION, NUTRITION.
In plant life the permanent fabric consists of only three elements—carbon, hydrogen, oxygen. We know that plants alone convert inorganic or mineral substances into organic matter, and that plants as a necessary result assimilate their inorganic food, decompose carbonic acid, and restore its oxygen to the atmosphere.
Vegetation is constructed of cells or vesicles, and has a cellular tissue. A cell is a living organism. It is that which makes up the tissue of plants. For the whole life of the plant is that of the cells which compose it; in them and by them its products are elaborated, and all its vital processes are carried on. Cell multiplication by division, cell growth, cell modification, exist in plants. Fluids are transferred from cell to cell by a process called endosmose. Absorption takes place by the roots, and the substance absorbed is carried up into the leaves, even to the topmost bough of a tree, passing in its course many millions of apparently water-tight partitions. Plants exchange gases, taking in carbonic acid and giving off oxygen. They evolve heat, have organs of reproduction, and elaborate the material for the final evolution of the seed. This seed, whether of grain, of vegetables, or of fruits, is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. And these constitute the starches and sugars which we find have been evolved by the vegetable or plant, and which form the food for animals. Plants, then, convert the elementary substances, the crude material, into food. In doing so, they pass through the processes known as the essentials of life; these are, birth, growth, development, decline, and death.
All organic compounds are transitory. They are constantly appearing and disappearing, composing and decomposing, organizing and disorganizing; and they are always dependent upon a certain degree of heat and moisture for their existence or non-existence.
The universal constituents of plant life; of organic existence, which are indispensable to vegetation, are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. Every vegetable substance is made up of at least eighty-eight to ninety-nine per cent of these elements. The proper vegetable structure, that is, the tissue itself, consists only of three of these elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen; while the fourth, nitrogen, is an essential constituent of the protoplasm, which plays so important a part in the formation of the cell, etc.
Plants prepare or elaborate out of these chemical elements food-substances composed of those elements—starches and sugars—upon which animals subsist. Animals feeding upon these vegetable substances assimilate, elaborate, them into meat substances, flesh, or proteids. These again are composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen.
Nitrogen plays the important role in proteids, being the distinguishing feature, as contrasted with substances of vegetable origin, the carbohydrates.
Thus man is provided with two kinds of food: derived from plants, carbohydrates; derived from animals, proteids, or albumens, besides water and mineral salts.
These foods undergo certain preparations previous to being introduced into the system. In the system the food undergoes farther elaboration, to make it fit to enter into the circulation of the blood, in order to supply suitable material for the master tissues.
We will now examine briefly the organs and their secretions that convert food-substances into blood, and, by the blood, into tissue.
The solvents and diluents of food in the human animal economy are the saliva of the mouth, the gastric juice of the stomach, the pancreative juice of the pancreas, the bile of the liver, and the juices of the intestines—the succus entericus.
The digestive apparatus consists mainly of the alimentary canal together with various glands of which it receives the secretions.
The alimentary canal commences at the mouth and terminates at the anus. The average length is about thirty feet, about five or six times the length of the body.
The part situated in the head and thorax consists of the organs of mastication, insalivation, and deglutition, and comprises the mouth with the teeth, the salivary glands, and the æsophagus or gullet. The parts contained in the abdomen and pelvis consist of the stomach and the small and large intestines.
The glands which are most immediately connected with digestion are very numerous small organs, situated in the mucous membrane of the alimentary canal, and the larger glands, such as the salivary glands, pancreas, and liver, whose ducts open on its inner surface.
The mouth is included between the lips and the throat, bounded by the lips, cheeks, tongue, and hard and soft palate. It communicates behind with the pharynx, and through the pharynx with the æsophagus. It is lined throughout with mucous membrane.
The mouth contains 32 teeth, 16 in the upper jaw and 16 in the lower jaw. The inferior maxillary bone, or lower jaw, is the only movable bone about the head. The teeth have for their functions biting, grinding, chewing, or triturating any hard food substance that may be introduced into the mouth.
The tongue is a muscular organ covered with mucous membrane. By its muscular structure it takes part in the process of mastication and deglutition, and in the articulation of speech, while its mucous membrane, with common and tactile sensibility, is the seat of the sense of taste.
The tonsils are two prominent bodies which occupy the recesses formed, one on each side of the fauces, between the anterior and posterior palatine arches and the pillars of the fauces.
The saliva, which is poured into the mouth and there mixed with the food during mastication, is secreted by three pairs of glands named from their respective situation parotid, submaxillary, and sublingual.
The parotid is the largest of three salivary glands. It lies on the side of the face, in front of the ear, and extends deeply into the space behind the ramus of the lower jaw. Its weight varies from 5 to 8 drachms. It has a duct called the parotid or Stenson’s duct. It is about 2½ inches long, and about a line and a half in thickness. Its orifice is opposite the crown of the second molar tooth of the upper jaw.
The submaxillary gland weighs about 2 to 2½ drachms, and is situated on the inner surface of the inferior maxillary. The duct is named Wharton’s, and is about 2 inches in length. Its orifice is found under the tongue.
The sublingual gland weighs about a drachm. It is situated on the floor of the mouth. The ducts are called the ducti Rivintiani. They are from 8 to 20 in number. They may be seen when the tip of the tongue is lifted up.
Saliva. Mixed saliva, as it appears in the mouth, is a thick, glairy, generally frothy, turbid fluid.
The quantity of saliva secreted in 24 hours varies. The average amount is probably from two to three pints in 24 hours.
The composition of saliva is:
| Water, | 994.10 |
| Solids, | 5.90 |
The solids are:
| Pyaline, | 1.41 | |||
| Fat, | 0.07 | |||
| Epithelium and Mucus, | 2.13 | |||
| Salts, |  | Sulphocyanide of Potassium, |  | 2.29 |
| Phosphate of Soda, | ||||
| Phosphate,, of,, Lime, | ||||
| Phosphate,, of,, Magnesia, | ||||
| Chloride of Sodium, | ||||
| Chloride,, of,, Potassium, | ||||
| 5.90 | ||||
The specific gravity varies from 1.004 to 1.008.
The rate at which saliva is secreted is subject to considerable variation. When the tongue and muscles concerned in mastication are at rest, and the nerves of the mouth are subject to no unusual stimulus, the quantity secreted is not more than sufficient, with the mucus, to keep the mouth moist.
The purposes served by saliva are of several kinds:
1. Acting mechanically in conjunction with mucus, it keeps the mouth in a due condition of moisture, and facilitates the movements of the tongue in speaking, and the mastication of the food.
2. It serves also in dissolving sapid substances and rendering them capable of exciting the nerves of taste.
3. By mixing with the food during mastication, it makes it a soft pulpy mass, such as may easily be swallowed.
4. Saliva performs a chemical part in the digestion of food. It transforms starchy substances into dextrine and grape sugar.
Starch is a carbohydrate—carbon 18, hydrogen 30, oxygen 15.
| C18H30O15 | + | 3H2O | = | C6H12O6 | + | 2(C6H10O5) | + | 2H2O |
| (Grape sugar.) | (Dextrine.) |
Ptyaline is the salient feature of saliva. It is known as a ferment—acting upon starch and converting it into dextrine and grape sugar.
The action of saliva varies in intensity in different animals.
The food after having been acted upon and prepared is propelled, by the act of deglutition, through the æsophagus into the stomach, by way of the pharynx.
The pharynx is that part of the alimentary canal which unites the cavities of the mouth and nose to the æsophagus. It extends from the base of the skull to the lower border of the cricoid cartilage, and forms a sac open at the lower end, and imperfect in front, where it presents apertures leading into the nose, mouth, and larynx. The pharynx is about four and a half inches in length, and is considerably wider across than it is deep from before backwards.
The æsophagus or gullet, the passage leading from the pharynx into the stomach, commences at the cricoid cartilage opposite the lower border of the fifth cervical vertebra, descends in front of the spine, passes through the diaphragm opposite the ninth dorsal vertebra, and ends by an opening at the cardiac orifice of the stomach. It is from nine to ten inches in length.
The stomach is situated in the abdominal cavity. It lies in part against the anterior wall of the abdomen, and in part beneath the liver and diaphragm, and above the transverse colon. It is somewhat conical or pyriform in shape. The left part is the larger, and is named the cardiac, or splenic, the right is named the pyloric, extremity. The upper border is about three or four inches in length, is concave, and is named the lesser curvature, while the lower border is much longer, is convex, and forms the greater curvature. The dimensions vary greatly in different subjects, and also according to the state of distension of the organ. When moderately filled, its length is about ten to twelve inches, and its diameter at its widest part from four to five inches. It weighs when freed from other parts about four and a half ounces in the male and somewhat less in the female.
The structure of the stomach consists of four coats—a serous, a muscular, an areolar, and a mucous coat. The external or serous coat is derived from the peritoneum. There are three kinds of muscular fibers—longitudinal, circular, and oblique, and the internal mucous lining is a rather thicker, soft, smooth, pulpy membrane, lying in ridges or rugæ, and containing a large number of glands—tubular or gastric glands, and another variety of gland called peptic, besides others.
While the stomach contains no food, and is inactive, no gastric fluid is secreted; and mucus, which is either neutral or slightly alkaline, covers its surface. But immediately on the introduction of food into the stomach, the mucous membrane, previously quite pale, becomes slightly turgid and reddened with the influx of a large quantity of blood; the gastric glands commence secreting actively, and an acid fluid is poured out in minute drops, which gradually run together and flow down the walls of the stomach, or soak into the substance introduced. The quantity of this fluid secreted daily has been variously estimated; but the average for a healthy adult has been assumed to range from ten to twenty pints in twenty-four hours.
The specific gravity of gastric juice has been found to differ little from that of water, varying from 1.001 to 1.010, and the amounts of solid present to be very small, viz., about 56 per cent.
The chemical composition of gastric juice is:
| Water, | 994.40 | |||
| Solids, | 5.59 | |||
| Solids, | | Ferment, pepsin, and a trace of ammonia, | 3.19 | |
| Hydrochloric acid, | 0.20 | |||
| Chloride of calcium, | 0.06 | |||
| Chloride,, of,, sodium | 1.46 | |||
| Chloride,, of,, potassium, | 0.55 | |||
| Phosphate of lime, magnesia, and iron, | 0.12 | |||
On starch gastric juice per se has no effect whatever, nor has healthy gastric juice any effect on grape sugar or cane sugar. On fats gastric juice is powerless.
The essential property of gastric juice is the power of dissolving proteid matters (meats, albumens, nitrogenous substances), and converting them into a substance called peptones. Gastric juice thus readily dissolves coagulated proteids which otherwise are insoluble, or soluble only with difficulty in very strong acids.
Certain conditions are required for the perfection of the process, which are all found in the stomach. The first is a temperature of 100° F. Second, minute division and constant movement favor digestion. Third, the greater the surface presented to the action of the juice, the more rapid the solution.
Neutralization of the juice wholly arrests digestion.
The digestive action of gastric juice on proteids, like that of saliva on starch, is a ferment action; in other words, the solvent action of gastric juice is essentially due to the presence in it of a ferment body called pepsin.
The general effect of digestion of the stomach is the conversion of food into chyme, a substance of various compositions according to the nature of the food, yet always presenting a characteristic thick pultaceous grumous consistence.
The small intestines commence at the pylorus and after many convolutions terminate in the large intestines. They measure on an average about twenty feet in length in the adult. For convenience they have been divided into three parts—the duodenum, which extends from eight to ten inches beyond the pylorus; the jejunum, which occupies two-fifths, and the ilium, which occupies three-fifths, of the rest of the canal.
The mucous membrane, the interior coat, is the most important to the function of digestion. There are permanent folds, shelf-like processes, of the mucous membrane, called valvular conniventes. There are also villi and glands, as the glands of Lieberkühn, of Peyer, and of Bruner. The glands of Lieberkühn are thickly distributed over the whole surface of the large and small intestines. The glands of Peyer are exclusively in the small intestine. They are found in greatest abundance in the lower part of the ileum near to the ileo-cæcal valve. They are met with in two conditions, viz., either scattered singly, in which case they are termed glandulæ solitairæ, or aggregated in groups varying from one to three inches in length and about half an inch in width, chiefly of an oval form, their long axes parallel with that of the intestines. In this state they are named glandulæ agminatæ. The latter are almost always placed opposite the attachment of the mesentery. In structure they are analogous to lymphatics or absorbent glands, and their office is to take up certain materials from the chyle, elaborate them, and subsequently discharge them into the lacteals, with which vessels they appear to be closely connected. Bruner’s glands are confined to the duodenum; they are most abundant and thickly set at the commencement of this portion of the intestines, and are provided with permanent gland ducts.
The villi are confined exclusively to the mucous membrane of the small intestines. They are minute vascular processes, from a quarter of a line to a line and two-thirds in length. There are about fifty to ninety in number to a square line. Each villus consists of a small projection of mucous membrane, and its interior is supported throughout by fine retiform or adenoid tissue. Two or more arteries are distributed to each villus, and from their capillaries, which form a dense network, proceed one or two small veins, which pass out at the base of the villus.
The lacteal vessels enter the base of each villus, and passing up in the middle extend nearly to the top, where it ends commonly by a closed and somewhat dilated extremity. The office of the villi is the absorption of chyle from the completely digested food of the intestines.
The large intestine extends from the termination of the ileum to the anus. It is usually about five to six feet in length, being about one-fifth of the whole length of the intestinal canal. The large intestine is constructed of four coats like those of the stomach and small intestines, namely, the serous, the muscular, the areolar or submucous, and the mucous. It is divided into the ascending colon, transverse and descending colon, and rectum and anus.
The cæcum is a short wide pouch, communicating with the lower end of the small intestines through an opening guarded by the ileo-cæcal valve. The appendix vermiformis is attached to the cæcum. The colon commences at the right groin, ascends to the liver, forms the hepatic flexure, then crosses transversely from right to left to the spleen, forms the splenic flexure, descends to the left groin, forms the sigmoid flexure, passes through the pelvis as the rectum, and terminates at the anus.
The mucous membrane of the large intestines, like that of the small intestines, is lined throughout by columnar epithelium, but unlike it, is quite destitute of villi and is not projected in the form of valvular conniventes.
The peritoneum, or serous membrane of the abdominal cavity, is by far the most extensive and complicated of serous membranes. Like the others, it may be considered to form a shut sac, on the outside of which are placed the viscera, which it covers. The peritoneum forms the mesenteries and omenta for the stomach, small and large intestines, and ligaments for the liver, spleen, uterus, and bladder.
The liver is a very important glandular organ, very constant in the animal series, being found in all the vertebrates, and, in a more or less developed condition, in most invertebrate tribes. It secretes bile, and appears to act upon the blood which is transmitted through it. The liver is the largest gland in the body, and by far the most bulky of the abdominal viscera. It measures from ten to twelve inches transversely from right to left, between six and seven inches from its posterior to its anterior border, and about three and a half inches from above downwards where thickest, which is towards the right and posterior part. The average bulk is about eighty-eight cubic inches. The ordinary weight in the adult is between 50 to 60 ounces, about one-thirtieth of the weight of the whole body. The liver is solid to the feel, and of a dull reddish-brown color, with frequently a dark-purplish tinge along the margin. It has an upper surface smooth and convex, and an under surface which is uneven and concave. The liver is divided into two unequal lobes, a right and a left, and on the under surface of the right lobe are three secondary lobes or lobules, named the lobe of Spigolius, the caudate or tailed lobe, and the square lobe. It has five fissures or fossæ, described as the transverse or portal; the umbilical fissure and the fissure of the ductus venosus, together forming the longitudinal fissure; the fossa of the vena cava, and the fossa of the gall bladder. It is held in position by five ligaments formed by layers of peritoneum.
The liver is situated on the right side of the body under the diaphragm. The convex surface is protected, on the right by the six or seven lower ribs, and in front by the cartilages of the same, and by the ensiform cartilage, the diaphragm of course being interposed.
To the left of the longitudinal fissure the liver is in contact with the pyloric extremity and anterior surface of the stomach, on which it moves freely. When the stomach is quite empty, the left part of this surface of the liver may overlap the cardiac end of that organ. To the right of the longitudinal fissure the liver rests upon the first part of the duodenum and the hepatic flexure of the colon. Farther back it is in contact with the upper part of the right kidney and suprarenal capsule.
The two blood-vessels which supply the liver are the hepatic artery and the vena porta. The hepatic vein conveys the blood away from the liver.
The lymphatics of the liver are large and numerous, forming a deep and a superficial set.
The nerves are derived partly from the cœliac plexus and partly from the pneumogastric nerve, especially from the left pneumogastric.
The excretory apparatus of the liver consists of the hepatic duct, the cystic duct, gall bladder, and common bile duct.
The hepatic duct is formed by the union of a right and left branch, which issue from the bottom of the transverse fissure and unite at a very obtuse angle; it descends to the right, within the gastro-hepatic omentum. Its diameter is nearly two lines, and its length nearly two inches. At its lower end it meets the cystic descending from the gall bladder, and the ducts uniting together at an angle form the common bile duct.
The cystic duct is about one and a half inches in length.
The gall bladder is a pear-shaped membranous sac, three or four inches long, about an inch and a half across its widest part, and capable of containing from 8 to 12 fluid drachms. The gall bladder is attached to the liver. The neck, gradually narrowing, becoming constricted, bends downward, and terminates in the cystic duct.
The common bile duct (ductus communis choledicus), the largest of the ducts, being from two to three lines in width, and nearly three inches long, conveys the bile from the liver and the gall bladder into the duodenum by a common orifice, with the pancreatic duct on its inner surface, about three to four inches below the pylorus.
The liver is an extremely vascular organ, and receives its blood supply from two distinct vessels, the portal vein and the hepatic artery, while the blood is returned from it into the inferior vena cava by the hepatic vein. Its secretion, the bile, is conveyed from it by the hepatic duct, either directly into the intestines, or, when digestion is not going on, into the cystic duct, and thence into the gall bladder, where it accumulates until required. The portal vein, hepatic artery, and hepatic duct branch together throughout the liver, while the hepatic vein and its tributaries run by themselves. At the transverse fissure it is merged into the areolar investment called Glisson’s capsule, which surrounds the portal vein, hepatic artery, and hepatic duct, as they enter at this part, and accompanies them in their branches through the substance of the liver.
The liver is made up of small roundish or oval portions called lobules, each of which is about 1⁄20 of an inch in diameter, and composed of minute branches of the portal vein, hepatic artery, hepatic duct, and hepatic vein; while the interstices of these vessels are filled by liver cells. These cells, which make up a great portion of the substance of the organ, are of rounded or polygonal form; about 1⁄800 to 1⁄1000 of an inch in diameter.
The function of the liver is the secretion of bile. The bile is a somewhat viscid fluid of a yellow, or greenish-yellow, color, a strongly bitter taste, and when fresh a scarcely perceptible odor. It has a neutral or slightly alkaline reaction, and its specific gravity is 1.020.
The composition of human bile is:
| Water, | 859.2 |
| Solids, | 140.8 |
| 1,000 |
The solids are:
| Biliary acids combined with alkalies (bilin), | 91.5 |
| Fat, | 9.2 |
| Cholestrin, | 2.6 |
| Mucus and coloring matter, | 29.8 |
| Salts, | 7.7 |
| 140.8 |
Bile is distinguished from the other alimentary secretions by the entire absence of proteids. The chemical composition of bilin, as compared with the organic parts of blood, is:
| Carb. | Hyd. | Nitr. | Oxy. | Sul. | |||
| Bilin atoms, | 76 | 66 | 2 | 22 | |||
| Blood, | 48 | 36 | 6 | 14 | |||
| Coloring matter, |  | Biliverdin, | 16 | 20 | 2 | 5 | |
| Glycocholic acid, | 26 | 43 | 1 | 6 | |||
| Taurocholic acid, | 26 | 45 | 1 | 7 | 1 | ||
There seems to be some relationship between the coloring matters of the blood and bile; and it may be added, between these and that of the urine also; so that it is possible they may be, all of them, varieties of the same pigment, or derived from the same source.
The quantity of bile discharged into the intestines is estimated to be about thirty to forty ounces secreted by an adult man in twenty-four hours.
The purposes served by the secretion of bile may be considered to be of two principal kinds, viz., excrementitious and digestive.
As an excrementitious substance, the bile serves especially as a medium for the separation of excess of carbon and hydrogen from the blood.
Though one of the chief purposes of the secretion of bile may appear to be the purification of the blood by ultimate excretion, yet there are many reasons for believing that while it is in the intestines it performs an important part in the process of digestion. Bile has a slight solvent action on fats, and only a slight emulsifying power.
Its functions generally may be considered thus:
1. It assists in emulsifying fatty portions of food, thus rendering them capable of being absorbed by the lacteals.
2. Bile facilitates the absorption of fatty matter.
3. Bile, like the gastric fluid, has a strongly antiseptic power, and may serve to prevent the decomposition of food during the time of its sojourn in the intestines.
4. Bile has been considered to act as a natural purgative, by prompting an increased secretion of the intestinal glands.
5. Another very important function appears to be that of so acting upon certain constituents of the blood passing through it, as to render some of them capable of assimilation with blood generally, and to prepare others for being duly eliminated in the process of respiration.
6. An important influence seems also to be exerted by the liver upon the saccharine matters derived from the alimentary canal. The chief purpose of the saccharine and amylaceous principles of food is, in relation to respiration and the production of animal heat.
The pancreas is a long, narrow, flattened gland of a reddish-cream color, larger at one end than at the other, and lying behind the stomach opposite the first lumbar vertebra. It is usually from 6 to 8 inches long, about 1½ inch in average width, and ½ to 1 inch in thickness. It weighs about 2¼ to 3½ ounces. Its principal excretory duct is called the pancreatic duct, and runs through the entire length of the gland from left to right. The duct opens in a common orifice with the ductus communis choledicus on the inner surface of the duodenum about 4 inches below the pylorus.
Healthy pancreatic juice is a clear, viscid fluid, frothing when shaken. It has a very decided alkaline reaction. The pancreas in its minute anatomy closely resembles the salivary glands; and the fluid elaborated by it appears almost identical with saliva.
The composition of pancreatic juice is:
| Water, | 980.45 |
| Solids, | 19.55 |
The solids are:
| Pancreatic, | 12.71 |
| Inorganic bases and salts, | 6.84 |
| 19.55 |
Action of pancreatic juice. (1) It acts on starch raw and boiled with great energy, rapidly converting it into grape sugar. (2) On proteids (meats) it also exercises a solvent action, so far similar to that of gastric juice that by it the proteids are converted into peptones. (3) On fats pancreatic juice has a twofold action: it emulsifies them, and it splits up neutral fats into their respective acids and glycerine.
Thus pancreatic juice is remarkable for the power it possesses of acting on all food-stuffs—on starch, fats, and proteids.
Succus entericus (intestinal juice). The precise action of this is not known. It has been said to act upon starch, to convert proteids into peptones, and to emulsify fats. On the other hand, each of these actions has been denied.
The portal system of veins. The portal vein, or vena porta, collects the blood from the stomach, intestines, pancreas, and spleen; and carries it to the liver, from which the bile is secreted; ramifying after the manner of an artery in the substance of the liver and conveying to the capillaries of that organ the blood collected in the main trunk. This blood, together with that of the hepatic artery, after having served for the secretion of the bile and the nourishment of the liver, is withdrawn from that organ by the hepatic veins, and carried by them into the vena cava inferior.
Digestion begins at the mouth. Food is masticated by the movement of the lower jaw, broken into small pieces, moistened by the saliva, and starchy substances are converted into sugar. No change takes place during the rapid transit through the æsophagus.
In the stomach the proteids are acted upon by the gastric juice and converted into peptones. Fats remain unchanged, and sugars are not acted upon. While these changes are proceeding, the thick grayish liquid, or chyme, formed by the imperfectly dissolved food, is from time to time ejected through the pylorus, accompanied even by large morsels of solid less digested matter. This may occur within a few minutes of food having been token, but the larger escape from the stomach probably does not begin till from one to two and lasts from four to five hours after the meal, becoming more rapid towards the end, such pieces as most resist the gastric juice being the last to leave the stomach. Substances can be absorbed from the cavity of the stomach into the circulation. The presumption is, that the diffusible sugars and peptones pass by osmosis direct into the capillaries, and so into the gastric veins.
In the small intestines the semi-digested food, or chyme, as it passes the biliary orifice causes a gush of bile, and at the same time the pancreatic juice which flows freely into the intestine at the taking of the meal, is secreted again with renewed vigor, when the gastric digestion is completed. The conversion of starch into sugar, which may have languished in the stomach, is resumed with great activity by the pancreatic juice. The pancreatic juice emulsifies fats, and also splits them into their respective fatty acids and glycerine, and the bile is able to a certain extent to saponify the free fatty acids. It also appears that the slight emulsifying power of the bile is much increased by the presence of soap; and as a matter of fact, the bile and pancreatic juice do largely emulsify the contents of the small intestines, so that the grayish turbid chyme is changed into a creamy-looking fluid, which has been called chyle. These products as they are formed pass into the lacteals or the portal blood-vessels.
Through the large intestine pass off indigestible or undigested constituents of the meal, and the gases generated.
Absorption takes place from the stomach, and occurs along the course of the small and large intestines, especially of water. The largest and most important part of the digested material passes away from the canal during the transit of food along the small intestines, partly into the lacteals, partly into the portal vein.
Digestion being, broadly speaking, the conversion of non-diffusible proteids and starch into highly diffusible peptones and sugar, and the emulsifying, or division into minute particles, of various fats, it is natural to suppose that the diffusible peptones and sugars pass by osmosis into the blood-vessels, and that the emulsified fats pass into the lacteals. That the great mass of the fat which enters the body from the intestines passes through the lacteals, there can be no doubt; and there is but little doubt that a considerable quantity of peptone and sugar does pass into the portal blood.
Chyle is a white milky-looking fluid, which after its escape coagulates, forming a not very firm clot. The nature of the coagulation seems to be exactly the same as that of blood.
Lymph seems to be blood minus red corpuscles, and chyle is lymph plus a very large quantity of minutely divided fats.
It has been calculated that a quantity equal to that of the whole blood may pass through the thoracic duct in twenty-four hours, and of this it is supposed that about half comes from food through the lacteals, the remainder from the body at large; but these calculations are based on uncertain data.
Entrance of chyle into the lacteals. The lacteals begin at a club-shaped lymphatic space lying in the center of the villus, and connected with the smaller lymphatic spaces of the adenoid tissue around it; it opens below into the submucous lymphatic plexus from which the lacteals spring.
The thoracic duct is the common trunk which receives the absorbents from both the lower limbs, from the abdominal viscera, from the walls of the abdomen, from the left side of the thorax, left lung, left side of the heart, and left upper limbs, and from the left side of the head and neck. It is from fifteen to eighteen inches long in the adult, and extends from the second lumbar vertebra to the root of the neck. At the last dorsal vertebra there is usually a dilation of the duct, of variable size, which is called the receptaculum chyli, and is the common place of junction of the lymphatics of the lower limbs and the trunks of the lacteal vessels. There are two sets of absorbent vessels—the lacteals, which convey the chyle from the alimentary canal to the thoracic duct; and the lymphatics, which take up the lymph from all the other parts of the body and return it into the venous system. There is a right lymphatic duct, about a quarter to a half inch in length, which receives the lymph from the absorbents of the right upper limb, the right side of the head and neck, the right side of the chest, the right lung and the right half of the heart, and the upper surface of the liver. The thoracic duct terminates on the outer side of the internal jugular vein, in the angle formed by the union of that vein with the subclavian, and the subclavian empties itself in the superior vena cava.
Lymphatics and lacteals are furnished with valves serving the same office as those of the veins, and for the most part constructed after the same fashion.
Lymph and chyle, unlike the blood, pass only in one direction, namely, from the fine branches to the trunk and so to the large veins, on entering which they are mingled with the stream of blood and form part of its constituents.
In some part of their course all lymphatic vessels pass through certain bodies called lymphatic glands.
Analysis of lymph and chyle:
| Lymph. | Lymph from Thoracic Duct. | Chyle from the Lacteals. | ||||
| Water, | 937 | .32 | 939 | .70 | 902 | .37 |
| Fibrine, | 0 | .595 | 10 | .60 | 3 | .70 |
| Albumen, | 42 | .775 | 38 | .83 | 35 | .16 |
| Fat, | 6 | .51 | a little | 36 | .01 | |
| Extractive Matter, | 5 | .05 | ||||
| Salts, | 7 | .75 | 10 | .87 | 22 | .76 |
| 1000. | 1000. | 1000. | ||||
Chyle having reached the lymphatic channels, its onward progress is determined by a variety of circumstances. Putting aside the pumping action of the villi, the same events which cause the movement of the lymph generally, also further the flow of the chyle, and these are briefly as follows:
1. The wide-spread presence of valves in the lymphatic vessels causes every pressure exercised on the tissues in which they lie, to assist in the propulsion forward of the lymph.
2. Considering the whole lymphatic system as a set of branching tubes passing from the extravascular regions just outside the small arteries and veins and capillaries, to the large venous trunks, it is obvious that the mean pressure of the blood in the subclavian at the junction with the jugular is the cause of the movement, etc., assisted perhaps by the respiratory movements, and other causes, as osmosis, etc.
The average quantity of solid fecal matter evacuated by the human adult in twenty-four hours is about five ounces; an uncertain proportion of which consists simply of the undigested or chemically modified residue of the food, and the remainder of certain matters which are excreted in the intestinal canal.
Gases contained in the stomach and intestines. The sources of the gases contained in the stomach and bowels may be enumerated:
1. Air introduced in the act of swallowing either food or saliva.
2. Gas developed by the decomposition of alimentary matter, or of the secretions and excretions mingled with it in the stomach and intestines.
3. It is probable that a certain mutual interchange occurs between the gases contained in the alimentary canal, and those present in the blood of the gastric and intestinal blood-vessels.
The movement of the intestines is peristaltic or vermicular, and is effected by the alternate contractions and dilatations of successive portions of the intestinal coats. The contractions, which may commence at any point of the intestine, extend in a wavelike manner along the tube. This is due to the involuntary longitudinal and circular muscular fibers contracting successively from above downwards and from behind forwards, etc. The movements take place slowly, and in health are commonly unperceived by the mind, but they are perceptible when they are accelerated under the influence of any irritation.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE ELEMENTARY SUBSTANCES.
We have thus far discovered that this terrestrial globe is composed of sixty-four elementary substances; that fifty belong to a class called metals, and the remaining fourteen are non-metallic and are called metalloids.
We know with absolute certainty the elementary chemical composition of all the substances known to man; everything within the reach of man has been analyzed, whether of inorganic or of organic origin.
We also know the principal elements that enter into the composition of organic substances, animal or vegetable.
But a thing that is not generally known is the wonderful role certain elements play in nature, especially in the life of plants and animals.
If we examine the extraordinary display of combination or composition of some of the elements—especially those that enter into the composition of organic substances—we shall find how few of these elements are essential for the production of life, and its maintenance; and we shall be surprised to find what force or power, and phenomena, they are capable of producing. We shall be surprised to see how nicely and delicately these elementary compositions are adjusted—with what precision the elements enter into combination with each other—and with what astonishing result.
The union of the elements that enter into the composition of living matter, must always be very accurately balanced, to insure a healthy or normal condition of either plant or animal. A very slight deviation or change may prove either injurious or destructive to the living organism.
In order to obviate writing the names of the elements, we propose to use symbols. The elementary substances that enter into the composition of living matter being few, it will not be difficult to recognize the meaning of the symbols. The four vital elements mentioned in a previous chapter are
| Carbon. | Hydrogen. | Nitrogen. | Oxygen. | |
| Symbols: | C | H | N | O |
The atmosphere we breathe, for example, is what is called a chemical mixture, and is composed of O22N77, with traces of ammonia, etc.
The water we drink is a chemical composition, and is constituted by O H2.
The number placed against each element indicates the quantity of each one requisite, or found, in the composition, or chemical combination, of the substance indicated.
Take water for example. O1 (one) and H2 (two), that represents a chemical compound. It is most abundant, and is by far the most essential, in the formation of organic life.
Air, water, fire, are represented by the four elements C H N O.
Every power, every force known to man is dependent upon these. Every kind of life is made up of these. Of every phenomenon manifested by nature, whatever the display may be or where it may occur, these elements are the fundamental basis.
Protoplasm, which is acknowledged to be the base of physical life, is nothing more than a homogeneous mass of albuminous matter which is composed of C H N O—with a greater or less quantity of each of these elements.
These elements enter into the formation of all gases, fluids, and solids. They are invisible at one time and visible at another. Without taste or color or odor in a free state, or even in combination, they assume taste, color, and odor when the elements combine in certain proportions. They become either harmless or poisonous; create, maintain, or destroy life.
Oxygen is a tasteless, colorless, and inodorous gas.
Hydrogen is a colorless, tasteless, and inodorous gas.
Nitrogen is destitute of color, taste, or odor.
Carbon is a solid but becomes gaseous in combination with either Oxygen or Hydrogen.
The diamond is one of the most remarkable substances known. It is always distinctly crystallized, often quite transparent and colorless, now and then having a shade of yellow, pink, or blue. Carbon is also found as graphite or plumbago. It constitutes a large proportion of all organic structures, animal and vegetable. Pure carbon, diamond, is the hardest substance known. In combination with Oxygen and Hydrogen it forms the softest of living matter, protoplasm. In combination with Oxygen it is poisonous to all animal life, and beneficial to vegetable life. Combined with Hydrogen, it forms the gas we burn, and is destructive to animal life. It is the food-maker in the plant, and it is the food-provider for the animal. It is the combustive agent in nature, in vegetables and in animals. From a thunderstorm to a flickering flame of a candle, carbon displays its power. From the smallest and lowliest aquatic vegetable cell to the highest animal cell tissue, it is the important solidifying, heat-giving element. These elements when free have neither color, odor, nor taste. Combined, however, they acquire odor, taste, and color.
O and N, the atmosphere, has no color, taste, or odor.
O and H, water, has no color, taste, or odor.
N and H, ammonia, has color, taste, and odor.
O and C is given off by animals, taken in by vegetables—carbonic acid.
C and H, the gas, has taste, odor, and color.
N and O produce a gas—laughing gas.
Any two of these elements may combine in the form of a gas, a liquid, or a solid. And any one may combine with any other element known and form a substance, a molecule.
O combines with all the elements known.
H combines,, with,, many.
N combines,, with,, some.
C combines,, with,, many.
Two elements form a substance.
Three elements form vegetable life.
Four elements form animal life.
Common salt is used daily with our food; is harmless and useful; it is known as the chloride of sodium. By analysis this compound is separated, analyzed, into chlorine and sodium. Na stands for sodium, and Cl for chlorine. Combine Cl with H. That forms hydrochloric acid, a strong poison, strong enough to dissolve marble. Cl has little attraction for O. Its chemical energies are principally exerted toward hydrogen and the metals. Cl is one of the best disinfectants, and makes excellent bleaching material. Na (sodium) combines with O, and H, and C. These are some of the combinations:
Na Cl = common salt.
Cl H = hydrochloric acid, a poison.
O Na H = caustic soda.
Na2 N O3 = Chili saltpetre.
Na2 C O3 = sodium, carbonate, etc.
Phosphorus and sulphur and other elements enter into combination with Oxygen and Hydrogen.
Both phosphorus (P) and sulphur (S) enter into organic life, but play a subordinate role.
The vegetable cell contains liquid, solid, and air. The growing, vitally active cells are filled with liquid, namely O and H, charged with more or less nutritive assimilated matters, C, etc.
Sap—the liquid which is imbibed by the roots and carried upwards by the stem—this is the water impregnated with certain gaseous matter derived from the air, and minute portions of earthy matter dissolved from the soil under the influence of light. Sap elaborated—from this we obtain the ternary substances composed of three elements, O C H; also substances composed of four elements, O C H N. The latter represents protoplasm or protein.
Vegetable chemical compounds, organic substances, can be produced only under certain vitalizing conditions and influences.
Wherever upon the surface of this earth, the sun’s rays produce a certain degree of heat, temperature, C H O may combine and evolve vegetable life.
In tropical climates, for example, notwithstanding the sun’s heat, no vegetation grows on high mountain peaks that are covered with snow and ice year in and year out; nor will vegetation grow in the cold climate of the north. C H and O will produce vegetable life only in the presence of heat. Heat is essential. And there is one source only whence it can be obtained, that is the sun.
The climate, as the temperature, etc.; the quantity of elements, and the quality of soil, vary the products of vegetation. That accounts for the immense variety, the differences existing. The organic chemical combinations in vegetable life are infinite. And all these varieties depend on the numerical quantities of each of the elements C H O that enter any composition.
The products of vegetation.
| C | H | O | N | ||
| Starch food substances, | 18 | 13 | 15 | ||
| Sugar, grape, | 6 | 12 | 6 | ||
| Sugar,,, cane, | H2O + | 12 | 22 | 11 | |
| Oils, aniseed, etc., | 10 | 12 | 1 | ||
| Acids, tartaric, | 4 | 6 | 6 | ||
| Acids,, , citric, etc., | 6 | 8 | 7 | ||
| Hydrocyanic, or prussic, acid, one of the strongest poisons, | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Tannin or tannic acid, | 27 | 22 | 17 | ||
| Turpentine oil (composed of carbon and hydrogen only) | 10 | 16 | |||
We have other vegetable products called alkaloids, that are principally found in the bark and the leaves. A few examples will suffice:
| C | H | N | O | |
| Morphia, | 17 | 19 | 1 | 3 |
| Strychnine, | 21 | 22 | 2 | 2 |
| Quinine (sulphate H2SO4), | 20 | 24 | 2 | 2 |
| The essence of coffee and tea, caffein or thein, | 8 | 10 | 4 | 2 |
The alcohols, acids, ethers, and so on, are all composed of these elements:
| C | H | O | |
| Alcohol, | 2 | 6 | 1 |
| Acetic acid, | 2 | 4 | 2 |
The combinations are infinite. Volumes are filled with organic chemistry. Mere mention only can be made, to show the wonderful power these elements display when variously combined.
The products of destructive distillation of coal yield a remarkable series of combinations:
| Carb. | Hyd. | ||
| Light carburetted hydrogen, marsh gas, or fire-damp, is composed of | 1 | 4 | (C1H4) |
| Aceteline, another product, | 2 | 2 | (C2H2) |
| Heavy carburetted hydrogen, olefiant gas, the gas we burn, ethelene, | 2 | 4 | (C2H4) |
These may undergo a vast variety of changes and combinations. Chloroform, alcohol, ethers, acids, oils and fats, resins, balsams, etc., etc., all have these elements in combination.
Does it not seem strange that the different numerical combinations of the same elements should have such different effects upon the animal system?
Why should starch and sugar compounds be good for the sustenance of animal life while other compounds of the same elements prove destructive to life? Or, why should morphia have such a peculiar effect upon the animal tissues—especially the nervous? And why should alcohol have such a peculiar effect upon the master tissues of the body? The difference in the chemical composition of quinine and strychnine is not so very great, yet the action upon the system is by no means the same. The effect upon the tissues is not the same.
Those who believe in a God easily dispose of these questions by simply exclaiming, They are the wonderful works of God!
That one drop of hydrocyanic acid upon the tongue of an animal should kill is very astonishing; that acid being composed only of one of Carbon, one of Hydrogen, and one of Nitrogen (C N H). Why should it paralyze the brain first, before it affects the heart, since it has to be carried by the blood through the circulation to the brain? The derangement of the functions of that center causes death.
The revelations of these important combinations and actions man had to make for himself. They were not brought down to us on tablets of stone by some supernatural agent, nor did spirits or angels communicate the mysteries and the powers of these elements.
It is owing to the development of man’s intellectual faculties, that the combinations of these elements has been made possible. It was quite a discovery when it was found that nitre, sulphur, and charcoal made gunpowder. There are only five elements in that compound, viz., Nitrogen, potassium, Oxygen, Carbon, and sulphur. Chili saltpeter is used for domestic purposes. Harmless to animal life, so is each one of these elements when they enter into combinations that are not destructive to life.
The forces and powers exercised by any compound depend on the number and kind of elements that enter into the composition. And the influence that bears directly upon their mutual activity again depends, when in a state of nature, upon the presence of heat. When a seed, as of wheat or of any starchy vegetable, is thrown into the ground, it will not germinate except in the presence of a certain amount of moisture, and heat, the heat varying from 50° to 80° Fahrenheit, in addition to free communication with the air.
Temperature, moisture, air, electricity, kind and quantity of the various elements in the soil present, cause the immense variations in plant life and plant compositions. Yet the same elementary compositions will be found in the same species, and the same conditions generally will be required to reproduce them.
Each group of elements that enters into the composition of any substance, carries with it qualities and capabilities peculiar to itself, throughout the vegetable kingdom. Its influence upon the animal economy will depend on the various atomic elements, and the quantities of each, that enter its combinations. For example, the atmosphere, the balance of power between O and N, is essential to both plant and animal. So with water, O H2. And so with those foods, starch and sugars, C18H30O15 or C6 H12O6; in each of these substances Carbon has its complement of Hydrogen and Oxygen. That is, the Carbon is, as it were, diluted in a sufficient quantity of water to make it suitable for food. Rob it of its Oxygen and it becomes a poison, an active poison. The less the quantity of Oxygen in any substance of organic origin the more unfit it becomes as a food. And it becomes poisonous to the animal system in proportion as the Oxygen is absent or removed from the composition. We have representatives of poisonous substances in alcohol, C2H6O, a mild poison; and in hydrocyanic acid, C N H, the strongest poison known.
Moreover, we see already peculiar manifestations in vegetable life, humble in character, low in degree. Plants not only rest from activity, but have their sleep and exhibit sensible movement from irritation. The foliage of the locust, and of most leguminous plants, and that of oxalis and wood-sorrel, seem to have their sleep, as seen by the position of their leaves and blossoms. Irritate the mimosa plant, as by roughly touching it, and the leaflets will suddenly change position. In the Dionæa muscipula, or Venus’s flytrap, the touch of an insect, alighting upon the upper surface of the outspread laminæ, causes its sides to close suddenly, the strong bristles of the marginal fringe crossing each other like the teeth of a steel trap, and the two surfaces pressing together with considerable force, so as to retain, if not destroy, the intruder, whose struggles only increase the pressure which this animated trap exerts.
It is evident that the elementary combinations under certain conditions and the influence of heat, will exhibit vital action, in an organic form—manifest phenomena of life, that are only in degree, and not in kind, inferior to the lowest plant life. The process is the same. The mode of living differs in degree, though the results are different.
The combination and exchange of elements takes place in the simple plant life as in the higher animal life. The watery portion of plant life is composed of O and H2, the same as water in a free state or water in animal life, and the combination of Oxygen and Hydrogen with Carbon. The food substances are found in the vital machinery of vegetation.
The characteristics of life exhibited in the lower grade of vegetation, are seen in a more perfect degree in animal life—respiration, exchange of gases, imbibition, absorption, assimilation, evolution of heat and motion, the power of incorporating material in its own substance, endosmosis, subjectibility to irritation, exhaustion, spontaneous movement, rest and sleep, capability of being influenced by various stimuli, etc., etc.
The combination of O, C, and H, organized and vitalized, in conjunction with a few other less important elements, manifests in conformity with the laws of nature all functions and activities that plant lie is capable of realizing. It would neither be extravagant, nor an exaggeration, considering the important role these elements play in vegetation, if they were rightfully termed the soul-life of plants.
CHAPTER XXII.
ALCOHOL AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE SYSTEM.
All substances taken into the stomach as food are of three kinds, carbohydrates, proteids, and fats. This means, starch, sugars, meats, and fats, besides water and some salts.
Food substances carry their own complement of water, serve nutritive purposes when taken into the system, and are easily dissolved by the various fluids in the body.
Food may be taken into the system for three purposes: 1. Simply for the maintenance of health; 2. For fattening purposes; 3. For the sake of muscular energy.
The body, the human body, consists, speaking in general terms, of carbohydrates, fats, and proteids, and water and saline matters.
We have seen that the work done by the master tissues causes a loss, or produces a certain amount of waste material, consisting of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen, and some mineral matter—salts. This loss or waste has to be replaced in quantity and quality sufficient in order to maintain a healthy condition of the body.
And, since we know the precise, or almost the precise, quantity of material excreted, which consists of Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Hydrogen, etc., we can also estimate, with considerable precision, the quantity needed to replace it.
More than 41 per cent of the entire weight of the body is made up of muscular tissue. The nervous tissue constitutes not quite two per cent.
The chemical composition of muscular and nervous tissue—of the solid part only—is
| Carbon. | Hydrogen. | Nitrogen. | Oxygen. | Sul. | |||||
| 51 | .5 | 6 | .9 | 15 | .2 | 20 | .9 | 0 | .3 |
| to | to | to | to | to | |||||
| 54 | .5 | 7 | .3 | 17 | .0 | 23 | .5 | 2 | .0 |
The watery portion of the muscle is not mentioned. Please notice the large quantity of Carbon and the small quantity of Hydrogen in the composition of the solid part of the muscle.
We are aware that the muscles are always producing Carbonic Acid—that is, C and O2—and when a muscle contracts, there is a sudden and extensive increase of the normal production.
The blood that comes from a contracting muscle is richer in Carbonic acid—that is, it contains one atom more of Carbon and two atoms of Oxygen more.
The blood that has passed through the lungs changes from venous to arterial blood. The venous discharges about 5 vols. of Carbonic acid (C O2); the arterial carries away about 5 vols. of Oxygen (O) to the tissues.
The carbohydrates taken into the system:
| Oz. | |||
| Starch and sugars, | about | 20 | |
| Meats, proteids, | about,, | 15 | |
| Fats, | about,, | 3 | ½ |
| Water, | about,, | 52 | |
About 32 ounces of saliva converts the starch into sugar. That is, the saliva changes starch (C18 H30 O15) into sugar (C6 H11 O5). Meats are acted upon by the gastric juice, it requiring about ten to twenty pints to dissolve three-quarters to one pound of meat-stuff; and the substances in the stomach are changed into chyme. The fats are emulsified by the gall from the liver—about 30 to 40 ounces for 3 to 4 ounces of fat. And the pancreatic juice completes the work and still farther dissolves all three kinds of substances, so that, with the aid of the succus entericus, the whole mass is changed into a substance called chyle. All the carbohydrates and proteids in solution, together with the fluids taken into the system, are taken up by the veins of the abdominal organs and conveyed by the portal vein to the liver. Passing through the liver, the blood is collected by the hepatic vein and emptied into the inferior vena cava. The fatty substances are taken up by the lacteals to the receptaculum chyli, passed up the thoracic duct, and poured into the left subclavian vein, which empties its contents into the superior vena cava.
Both streams of blood—venous blood—from the superior and inferior vena cava, pass into the right auricle, thence to the right ventricle, through the pulmonary artery into the lungs, there exchange the Carbonic acid for Oxygen, and return by means of the pulmonary veins into the left auricle, thence to the left ventricle, through the aorta into the general system—and to the master tissues.
In the tissues the Oxygen is taken up. That is, the Oxygen passes from the blood to the tissues and the tissues throw off the Carbonic acid, which the veins again carry to the right side of the heart.
Alcohol is composed of Carbon two (2), Hydrogen six (6), and Oxygen one (1) (C2 H6 O1). Alcohol, like all poisonous substances, carries a small amount of Oxygen. In composition it resembles very much, and probably is, a union of C2 H4 + H2 O, C2 H4 = ethane, olefiant gas, or heavy carburetted hydrogen. It is, in fact, a constituent of the gas we burn, procured from the destructive distillation of coal—in other words, coal gas. To make it plainer, ethane contains two of Carbon, four of Hydrogen + one molecule of water.
When alcohol is taken into the system, it is almost immediately absorbed by the veins of the stomach, is carried at once by the portal vein to the liver, and returns from the liver by way of the hepatic vein to the inferior vena cava, to the right auricle, and to the lungs through the right ventricle.
But the lungs cannot supply Oxygen enough to satisfy the Carbon of the alcohol. There is only one atom of Oxygen in the composition of alcohol, and three more atoms of Oxygen are needed to form Carbonic acid (C O2). Under ordinary, normal conditions, Oxygen enough is inspired to satisfy the wants of the tissues for combustion purposes, but in the case of alcohol an extra demand for Oxygen is made, and the lungs are not prepared to supply the demand.
Since oxidation takes place in the tissues and not in the blood, the blood, being overcharged with heavy carburetted Hydrogen (C2 H4), unloads it into the tissue. The extra amount of Carbon arriving at the tissue, robs it of its Oxygen. The Oxygen arriving from the lungs being insufficient, the tissue loses Oxygen. The presence of Oxygen is necessary for the maintenance of irritability. From the fact that no free Oxygen is present in the muscular tissue the tension is nil or even less than nothing.
When the Carbon of the alcohol robs the tissues of its Oxygen, the Hydrogen is set free. What becomes of it? The muscular and nervous tissues contain from 51 to 54 per cent of Carbon in their composition, and 6 to 7 per cent of Hydrogen. The free Hydrogen combines with the Carbon of the tissues and forms carburetted Hydrogen, with which the blood gets overloaded, and carries it to the other tissues. The nervous system, the brain, not receiving the Oxygen necessary, in consequence of the blood being overcharged with both Carbonic acid and carburetted Hydrogen, the nervous substance is first impaired, next exhausted, and lastly its normal activity extinguished.
The muscles meantime through having been robbed of both Oxygen and Carbon—receiving no free Oxygen or very little—and through the presence in the circulating fluid of Carbonic acid and carburetted Hydrogen, lose the power to act. The cerebrum, cerebellum, medulla oblongata, with all the other subordinate nervous centers, being impaired by the poison and the absence of Oxygen, the nerves of volition lose control, the cerebrum has its will power impaired or entirely subdued, and the cerebellum loses the power of muscular coördination.
Thus, then, the master tissues become crippled. At first alcohol may have a stimulating effect on the nervous system; next, if the indulgence be continued, the nervous forces become exalted; finally, however, depression sets in, and proves at last a complete extinguisher of the intellectual faculties.
The muscles first lose the power of coördination, the irritability and tension gradually cease, at length they refuse to act.
The brain and muscles being helpless, the body lies in a state of stupor, motionless. The individual is temporarily deprived of his mental faculties, incapacitated, and completely oblivious to all his surroundings. The involuntary organs, however, may act. The stomach may eject its contents, having lost consciousness and will power. The urine and feces may pass off involuntarily.
All organs have to suffer, but two more than all the rest—the liver and kidneys.
The function of the liver, as we have already seen, is the secretion of the bile. That organ has still another important duty to perform, and that is in converting the starchy substances, or its already converted sugars, in to glycogen = C6 H10 O5. The metabolic activity of the hepatic cells lies in the formation of glycogene. Glycogene is a source of heat in the body. It is constantly present in the muscle, as a functional material no doubt. The chief purposes this substance serves are probably for respiration and production of animal heat.
We must bear in mind that fats are composed of C, H, and O, and that both fats and carbohydrates serve nutritive purposes. Whether any difference exists between the two we do not know at present, beyond the fact that in the final combination of the two, while carbohydrates require sufficient Oxygen only to combine with their Carbon, there being already sufficient Oxygen in the carbohydrate itself to form water with the Hydrogen, fats require in addition Oxygen to burn off some of their Hydrogen.
Alcohol is not convertible into glycogene. The six atoms of Carbon are complemented by five molecules of water: C6 + 5 O H2 = C6 H{10} O5. As already stated, alcohol (C6 H2 O) contains only one molecule of water (H2 O + C2 H4 ethane). To convert the four of Hydrogen into water, two of Oxygen are needed—and to form Carbonic acid three of Oxygen are wanting.
In this connection we may ask, Is alcohol a food? No! Alcohol is in no sense a food!
As a stimulant it is very useful, in a certain class of exhausting diseases, but taken in large quantities alcohol acts as a slow poison.
The action of the alcohol, which must pass through the liver, is certainly not beneficial. On the contrary, the function of the organ is interfered with and the tissues of which the liver is composed slowly but surely undergo a degenerative process.
The alcoholic beverages differ. As for example, whisky, wine, and beer—of the three beer is probably the least injurious. By reason of the hops it contains it helps to allay nervous irritability. When taken continuously in large quantities, it leads to congestion of the liver and the accumulation of fat. Beer contains only four to five per cent of alcohol, or thereabout. The effect of beer on some individuals is somewhat similar, in the increase of size, to the remarkable growth of some aquatic plants, as the gourd, in which the vegetable tissue cells are very large and increase very rapidly.
The use of the stronger spirits leads to a degeneration of another kind—contraction of the liver, cirrhosis.
The kidneys are the next to suffer severely by the alcoholic fluids. The whole blood is purified by the kidneys. The transit is very rapid; the elimination of impurities must necessarily be rapid. The body under the normal condition eliminates Nitrogen chiefly; this is the urea and uric acid found in the diurnal excretion of urine of fifty-two ounces in the twenty-four hours. But if instead of a man drinking the ordinary allowance of fifty-two ounces of water, a man takes in several hundred ounces, as in the case of some beer-drinkers, it is evident that the kidneys have a great deal more work to perform than usual, in addition to the constant irritability the kidneys, like the liver and other organs, are subject to.
The sobering up of a man after a drunk, consists in receiving Oxygen sufficient in quantity into the tissues, to supply the amount he has lost. It takes several hours before sufficient Oxygen has been introduced into the tissues to establish the normal equilibrium.
The theories on alcohol are various. I quote some of the more important ones, briefly stated:
Liebig thought that alcohol disappeared by complete and rapid combustion.
Lallemand and Perrin entertained the theory that alcohol was eliminated by the excretory organs. (That means, perhaps, that alcohol simply promenaded through the system.)
Parks was of opinion that alcohol is directly absorbed by the blood-vessels without undergoing any change or decomposition.
Another theory was that alcohol is converted into acetic acid (C2 H{4} O2); and that acetic acid is split up into carbonic acid (C O2) and water—which is impossible, as there is not Oxygen enough for both C O2 and H2 O.
It appears, then, that alcohol does not disappear by rapid combustion, except when taken in very small quantities and during a state of exhaustion, and then not by combustion. That alcohol is excreted there is no doubt, but when taken in large quantities it is not excreted without leaving its permanent mark behind it. Nor is it absorbed by the blood-vessels without undergoing any change or decomposition, otherwise it would be excreted by the kidneys and skin.
That the function of the brain is entirely suspended, for a time at least, needs no argument, because all will power is arrested, the nerves of special sense cease to act, all nerve-centers suspend operation, and the nerve-fibers no longer act as conductors of either motion or sensation. And the muscular tissues are no longer capable of irritation, stimulation, or coördination; contraction, flexion, and extension have been temporarily annihilated; the force, the power, and the action have succumbed to the harmful influence of alcohol. And the cause of it all is—too much carburetted Hydrogen and the absence of Oxygen. This has unbalanced the elements that normally enter into the composition of the tissue both of muscle and nerve.
The master tissues, the nervous and muscular, that get drunk, they are the first to feel the stimulation, become excited, depressed, and exhausted.
And finally let us sum up some of the effects of alcohol on the system:
1. It is a source neither of heat nor of energy, nor can it be stored up for future use, nor can it be assimilated in the tissues.
2. Alcohol retards the motion of the blood.
3. It induces specific action after the manner of cumulative poisons.
4. By the veins and absorbents alcohol mixes with the blood, and immediately acts as a stimulant on all the tissues with which it is brought in contact.
5. It causes the retention of substances which ought to be eliminated.
6. It is shown by abundant testimony that the blood becomes surcharged with unchanged and unused material, and contains more Carbon than normally, at times as much as 20 to 30 per cent.
7. Alcoholic blood coagulates slowly and extravasates easily.
8. The susceptibility to disease is greater, the resisting force is diminished, and the healing process seriously interfered with.
9. Oxygen is diverted from its proper functions, the exhalation of carbonic acid at the lungs is diminished, both absolutely and relatively, but the pulmonary aqueous vapor is not lessened.
10. The functions of the brain are at once stimulated, and all other organs are excited, and a train of phenomena is induced partly of a chemical nature and partly of a physical or vital.
11. Alcohol produces a temporary increase of the heart’s action, and a congestion of the whole of the pulmonary capillaries.
12. It irritates the parts, stimulating the glandular secretions, leads to congestion of the blood-vessels, in time forms spurious melanotic deposits and a gradual thickening of the gastric substance.
13. Fat gradually is increased in the blood, and a milky character is imparted to the serum of the blood, and the red corpuscles in time assume a wrinkled and contracted appearance.
14. The water of the urine is diminished; the chlorides are greatly lessened, as well as the acids and bases.
Most people are concerned about themselves only to the extent of securing the immediate satisfaction of their senses. The superficial surroundings they utilize to cater to the enjoyment of such indulgences of acquired taste, habit, passion, feelings or emotions, as prove most gratifying to them, never thinking that their constitution is nothing more than a vitalized chemical machine, temporarily passing through its terrestrial cycle of physiological activity, beginning as a mass of protoplasm, and terminating, when it has gone through all the phases of animal existence, in the distribution of its chemical elements.
The deranging effect of alcohol on the nervous and muscular tissues may be compared to the working of an ordinary battery. We know that the action and the force depend on the elements that enter into the composition of the battery, fluids and solids, zinc and copper, and sulphuric acid—representing zinc, copper, sulphur, Oxygen, and Hydrogen. The action of the zinc and copper depends upon the fluids. Other fluids, though composed of three elements, would produce either not the same effect, or no effect at all. It stands to reason that, since we know the kind of fluid that will set the elements in action, we certainly should be very unwise to use another fluid that will either derange or destroy the battery’s working capacity. The forces or force are in this instance produced by the combination of certain elements, and in order to continue the activity or action of these elements one upon the other, a constant supply must be kept up. The mechanism of muscular action, or nervous action, depends upon the supply of certain elements; they are continually replacing elements that are used up in the work they have to perform—that is, the function of brain or muscle. The moment elements are introduced that do not or cannot make up the loss of the working expenditure, that tend rather to disorganize or decompose the tissues, the functions and the natural forces are interfered with, weakened, or may be brought to a standstill.
The effect of alcohol is much the same on all animals. I mean, that the master tissues of the lower animals will succumb to the influence of alcohol as readily as those of a human being. We know with certainty what gets drunk—where is the spiritual part of man? where is the soul? When the brain is intoxicated, its functions are more or less suspended, its controlling or governing action is lost over the muscular tissue, in addition to the muscles themselves being disabled. Both tissues, having been robbed of their elementary equilibrium, consequently cease working. The moment the equilibrium is reëstablished, the tissues assume their functions the same as before. If a given number of specific parts enter into the construction of any mechanism in order to produce a certain amount of force and effect, the number of specific parts must always be present if the same force and effect is to be realized. Brain and muscle are made up of a specific number of elements; these must be always present if we would have them produce the normal force and effect. When too much Carbon and Hydrogen and too little Oxygen are introduced into the system, as in the case of alcohol, the derangement of these elements is felt in the poisonous effect, because enough Oxygen cannot be supplied to keep up with the demand.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SOUL—WHAT IS IT?
Dry truth, real knowledge, hard facts, are less interesting, less entertaining, than a plausible fable or a fanciful story. While the latter is listened to, with eagerness and pleasure, the former barely receives ordinary civility and attention. The effort requisite to understand and to think, requires resolution, determination, and fixed attention. The senses are not stimulated, the emotions and feelings not aroused, by mathematical problems or astronomical calculations. The muscular tissues are much more easily trained, disciplined, and educated than the nervous tissues. In the former we see immediate results. There is a pleasure in the pursuit, a palpable satisfaction in watching the muscular action and physical development. The most agreeable part about that kind of exercise, training—or education if you choose—is that it is easily acquired and soon put in practice, and much admired. It has other advantages in addition. The fatigue and exhaustion in consequence of muscular exercise, add no small amount of enjoyment to that already experienced, by having to replenish the spent energies, to fill the demand for new material called for. The gustatory and olfactory nerves are stimulated by odor of the viands provided, and what is still more important, the glandular activity that is set in motion produces an amount of exhilaration, so satisfactory that it is recognized as one of the principal features for every and on all occasions. “A feast is made for laughter and wine maketh merry” ([Eccles. x, 19]).
Muscular action, however, cannot take place without nervous action. These two tissues are dependent one on the other. Yet the muscular tissue may be considered as subordinate to the nervous tissue. While the muscular tissue may become totally inactive or incapacitated, or even removed, the brain tissue may retain its activity and continue to perform its functions. The very reverse takes place when the brain is either injured or removed. We know by experience, experiments, that injuries or other pathological changes will cause impairment to muscular tissue.
It is hard to conceive, and harder still to understand, that an animal—man included—is nothing more than a vitalized machine, composed in the first place of two distinct working parts—muscular and nervous—while all the other portions have to perform duty in order to sustain them.
The word function is a term applied to all tissues in general, as kidneys, liver, stomach, etc.; each has its function. So have muscles and nerves. The former has for its function contraction, while the latter has for its function to control and regulate that contraction.
The first part of the machinery is governed and checked by the domination of the other. That dominion, that control, is termed Volition, in other words, will power!
1. Will power! What is it? It is a power which every animal possesses, and every animal exercises, in accordance with its particular organization and degree of organic development.
2. Every animal has the power, with the aid of its senses—five senses of sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling—to select substances from the vegetable and mineral kingdom, for its immediate want, for the sustenance of life.
3. It has the power of locomotion to go in search for those substances, and to carry them to a place of safety, for present or future use. It has the power to select the kind of food, to choose that which is beneficial and reject that which is injurious. The five senses direct in that selection.
4. The animal has will power to protect and defend his possessions—through his senses the brain directs and the muscles act.
5. The animal has will power, when the organs of procreation are developed, to choose a partner for the production of young. The senses serve in making the selection, as regards beauty, form, size, etc.
6. It has the will power to nourish and protect its young or to destroy it.
7. Animals have the will power to build their habitation, their home, and furnish it in a manner best suited for their comfort.
8. Animals have the power to articulate sound, and have the will to communicate with each other if they so desire, to antagonize or to quarrel.
9. They have the will power to select from the surrounding elements. They choose water, air, sunshine, high or low altitudes; they migrate from warm to cold, and from cold to warm, climates.
10. They have social intercourse among themselves; have a will power to organize as a band or body to protect themselves against the attacks of other organized bodies, to fight and to battle.
11. Animals instruct their young—guide them and protect them, as well as feed them. They have their code of morals. They have all such functions as serenading, love-making, music, jealousy, pleasure, and anger. Animals have judgment; they can compare and reflect on cold and heat, danger and tranquillity, comfort and discomfort. They can reject or accept.
12. They have memory, perception, and understanding. Domestic and wild animals exhibit these peculiarities. They will manifest their likes and dislikes, hate and love, courage and cowardice.
The will power depends on the nervous system—the cerebral hemispheres, the cerebrum or small brain, the thalamus opticus, corpus striata, corpora quadrigemina, the peduncles, medulla oblongata, spinal cord, etc. That is, all the organs that constitute the nervous machinery, that control the muscular tissues in all their acts, and keep a watchful outlook over all other organs of the body.
The will power, then, is the power to act in accordance and in harmony with the things recognized, or the selection made by any of the five senses, discriminating between that which is good for them and that which is injurious, or good and evil.
Animals in selecting grass for food will avoid that which is injurious to them. The olfactory and gustatory nerves guide them. They will seek shelter, and evidently know what to do when a thunderstorm approaches, etc., etc.
Will power is a property, quality, or function belonging to all living creatures in common. The degree of will power depends upon the quality, quantity, and perfection of the nervous organization. Man has will power in a measure greater as the nervous system is developed, educated, and perfected.
Morality—a quality that does not exclusively belong to man. What is morality? It is nothing more than a restraint, or check, on our actions and our feelings. It is the regulating of the actions of life towards ourselves and towards others. It is the obedience to recognized and established laws in a community, socially and politically. It means not to trespass against the laws of nature, against ourselves, or against our neighbors.
Animals restrain themselves and obey.
Morality differs according to the social customs and practices, and the civil laws regulating the same, which were made and adopted for mutual benefit and protection. These are either crude or refined, depending on the condition of society.
To a limited degree animals have morality. Man has it in a higher and more refined degree, according to the progress and culture attained.
Intelligence—Animals possess intelligence, if the meaning of it is, to recognize sounds and figures, be obedient to the voice, understand what is said, perform certain acts, execute the will of a master, know the difference between right and wrong, express gratitude, exercise watchfulness, protect life and property, remember places and objects in general, be capable of some degree of improvement, susceptible of training and modification of conduct, etc., within the limits of the nervous power the animal has.
What is the soul? Is the soul something quite independent of matter? Is it a something entire and complete in itself? A perfect part of a perfect whole? Does the soul possess all the excellences and qualities theologians claim for it? Whence does it come? What does it consist of? Has it an existence separate and apart from the body? If so, where? In what state does it exist previous to entering the body? Does every human being receive a like quality and quantity? Has it consistency? density? elasticity? Is there any connection between the soul principle and matter? Spirit and soul, are they one and the same thing, or do they differ? If so, in what? What is substance soul and substance spirit? Is it self-acting and self-existing? Is the soul susceptible to training and education, and the reception of knowledge? Or is the soul already trained, educated, and possessed of all the knowledge that is now known or likely to be known? Does the will power reside in the soul? And is the nervous system subservient to the soul? Is the soul endowed with passions and emotions? Can the soul deteriorate, be injured or be afflicted? In what degree does the soul differ in the civilized and in uncivilized man?
The theological soul has its origin in the Bible, no doubt (from the word nephesh, breathing; the Greek psyche: Latin animas, chayu, breath of life).
This word gave the impulse to a vast amount of thought and reflection, both theological and psychological. Discussion and literature followed as extensive as there has ever been on any metaphysical topic.
It may be interesting to learn some of the attributes of the soul. Here is a partial list: “Will, passion, love, joy, grief, anger, mirth, sorrow, revenge, contempt, hatred, honor, pride, humility, jealousy, despair, pity, compassion, love of fame, of music, of the marvelous, of notoriety, avarice, guilt, curiosity, astonishment, respect, desire, cheerfulness, melancholy, sense of beauty, sense of the sublime, sense of friendship, feeling of delight, selfishness, generosity, etc.” The author of this concoction had not a very clear notion of what he was writing about, otherwise he would have known that animals have in common with man most of the emotions above recited. The soul is a display of nervous phenomena, exhibited under certain circumstances, differing only in intensity of expression, depending upon the kind and character of animal and man.
It is one of the common tricks of trade—when theologians argue upon the immortality of the soul, they bring and ring in any amount of biblical evidence to sustain them. They prove nothing. They cannot prove anything. It is the standing puzzle. They try to unravel a mysterious something that is not mysterious. Nor is there any need of mystery. What is essential for us to know is the truth, plain natural facts. There is nothing that we need be either ashamed or afraid of. If we have been deluded by errors made several thousand years ago, regarding the dual composition of man, or have been imposed upon and intentionally retarded in the onward progress, it is time to correct the error and remove the imposition. Let us have a clear, intelligent view of things and look at them as they are. This mystery, like other mysteries, can be cleared up by the light of science and modern investigation.
What is the difference between man and animal? Articulate speech and the susceptibility of the brain matter to a high degree of culture.
Mind is a term employed to designate the collective acquirements of a man’s brain. In proportion as the acquirements are greater or less, the mind is greater or smaller.
These acquirements may be simple, complex, or profound. They may be biased, general, or scientific; they may be deep, learned, or superficial. They may be only a slight advance above the general animal instinct; or may have assumed a superior intelligence and may have arisen to a higher plane of intellectual qualities.
The acquirement or evolution of mental power and intellectual capacity depends:
1. On the constitutionally inherited capacity and capability.
2. On the size and general conformation of the brain.
3. On the perfect condition of the organs of special sense.
4. On the quality of the nervous structure.
5. On the general physical constitution of the body.
6. On the evenly balanced equilibrium between the vital organs.
7. On the chemical elementary constituents that enter into the composition of the various tissues, especially the nervous tissue.
8. And lastly on the education, training, or culture.
9. I may add, suggestively, on the relative quantity and quality of the gray and white substance of the brain, etc., and perhaps on the depth of the sulci and the size of the convolutions and the general symmetry of the different lobes of the cerebrum, etc.
The brain of an idiot is not susceptible to culture or education. He has all the senses, but of an inferior and imperfect order; a brain insufficient in quantity and quality to be capable of acquiring anything. No mind can be formed. The idiot has not any intellect. Has he a soul?
Or supposing any portion of the brain is diseased and any one of the special senses ceases to act, as sight, hearing, or any part of the muscular tissue, and the intellect is impaired, either partially or wholly incapacitated, then has the soul suffered any damage, or does the soul remain intact?
Or supposing that a child is born blind, or that some one of the nerve centers controlling certain faculties of the brain is absent, and the education is necessarily limited to the remaining nerve centers, is the soul still complete and perfect?
Or in case of change of structure of the brain substance, as in softening of the brain; or in case of tumors, blood clots (thrombosis), or syphilitic disease, and paralysis either local or general resulting—depending on the seat of the disease—what has the soul to do with it? Or in disease of the meninges (coverings); or in case of insanity, whatever morbid cause might have produced that condition, where is the soul?
Or when, in consequence of morbid changes, the mental and physical expressions, the actions, change, often extravagantly, is the soul affected thereby?
When the body is afflicted with disease, does the soul suffer?
At what period of fetal development is it that the soul enters the body? Or does it enter at birth?
The breath of life is Oxygen. Without that element one could not live. Without it the newly born babe is more helpless than a lower animal. Not a single special sense is fully developed. The brain substance is not fully developed. The babe has no power to will anything. It has no volition—except the act of nursing, and that is not a voluntary act. The organs over which will has no control are the first to act—an infant soils its linen involuntarily. It imbibes nourishment, as a mass of protoplasm imbibes moisture. It has neither will power nor desire. It cannot select. It has neither knowledge nor conscience. Since none of the special senses is able to act, it has no perception of any kind whatsoever. It experiences only two sensations, pain and hunger. Young birds and other young animals do the same.
Is there anything in this newly born babe of a supernatural character, such as a soul, spirit; the knowledge of God, or of good and evil? Does there exist in this mass of organized protoplasm anything that may be called divine? Is there aught innate? No! Certainly not!
There are what may be termed latent powers—not unlike latent heat—capable of being evolved. You may fashion anything out of it—in the religious line, brutal or uncivilized, etc. It will acquire any kind of speech, from the howling of a dog to the most refined language. It will contract any habit, from that of the lowest animal type to that of the most refined lady or gentleman. You may make either a cannibal out of it or the most fantastic gustatorian. It will either crawl, climb, or walk. It will live anywhere and anyhow. It will either parade nude, be painted, or wear a breechcloth, or wear a swell dress coat, or, if it be a female, a long trailing skirt with all sorts of gewgaws. In religion you may make anything out of this babe. You may make it believe the greatest nonsense. It will believe three gods in one or twenty-five gods in one. It will be a Jew, a Christian, a Mohammedan, or the lowest brute on the face of the earth.
This mass of vitalized matter is susceptible to training. The physical part, the muscular part, always develops and is readily trained. In a primitive state it requires but little discipline to acquire muscular strength. The muscular powers are the first to assert themselves. This master tissue, whenever and wherever it excels, receives honor and homage, and prevails among its companions. In barbaric ages this was the controlling force, the ruling spirit, the governing power.
The nervous tissues require teaching. The senses must be trained, educated, cultured, refined. The impressions received through the nerve-centers by the senses are stored up in the cerebrum. Though they are at first simple, crude, and incomprehensible, habit, use, or repetition enables them to familiarize us with the surrounding objects.
If the brain is fully formed, the infantile education begins. By constant repetition of the same acts, the sense of satisfaction from feeding, and the sense of comfort from cleanliness, are slowly established in the experience of the child.
Hunger, cold, heat, and moisture will cause it to manifest its dissatisfaction by crying. It sleeps twenty out of the twenty-four hours, and wakes only to indicate its wants of either hunger or discomfort. The more regularly it is fed, and the more cleanly it is kept, the more peacefully will it rest and the more soundly will it sleep.
When, however, an infant is born, though physically fully developed, with face fully formed, but acephalous, without brain—that is, when an arrest of development has taken place—the babe cannot live, it cannot breathe, because the principal part of the nervous system is wanting—the medulla oblongata, cerebrum and cerebellum, etc.—though the lungs, heart, and all other organs are perfectly developed. This arrest of development may take place at any time. It is thus that congenital malformations are produced. Idiots are thus formed, or any other inferior formation of brain may take place. In proportion as the parts are present or wanting—the brain, or rather the nervous system—latent (better, inherent) qualities for future capabilities exist or do not exist. Supposing the optic nerve is arrested in its development, or any organ with which it is immediately connected, the special sense of sight is wanting. Though the eye itself, the organ of sight, may be perfect, all the training and education will never give it capability or skill in arts and sciences. This can never be acquired by that organ. You cannot educate that organ which you have not. Whatever perfect brain formation exists may be trained, fashioned, educated, in any one of the thousands of directions one pleases. It may be given any bent or bias, good, bad, or indifferent—depending upon the influences that are brought to bear on the young brain while it is in the process of developing.
An infant has no mind, intellect, thought, idea, memory, or any other nerve quality that nerve structure is capable of developing.
Talk of soul or spirit is absurd. It does not exist either in infant or in man any more than it exists in a plant or an animal—unless the term is applied to the collective functions of the great central organs, and in that case it would certainly not be supernatural.
At the time when the books of Moses were written—we need not even go so far back as when the fable of creation was first related—they knew nothing of circulation or of respiration, or of the nervous system. It was not even thought of. I believe you may search the Bible from end to beginning and from beginning to end without finding such a thing. No such word as brain is mentioned. What is known of the nervous system is, comparatively speaking, of recent date.
“What seems most marvelous is, that we, in the nineteenth century, boasting of a high grade of civilization, and, I may say, with all the modern improvements, should accept and still hold fast to an idea that originated in the brain of some barbarian four thousand or more years ago, away down in Mesopotamia (now Turkey) where they are still considered uncivilized. This is certainly very strange.
But ah! that priestcraft!