The History of a Mouthful of Bread / And its effect on the organization of men and animals

by Jean Macé

LETTER XXIV.

THE WORK OP THE ORGANS.

Thus much is settled, then. It is the blood which sets everything in motion throughout the body. The organs are idlers who would do nothing but for him; they only work when goaded on, if I may use the expression, by that fire—always on the point of going out—which he is perpetually coming back to rekindle, thanks to the oxygen he carries with him from the lungs.

This will enable me to explain many things, which, although not new to you, you have probably never tried to account for before.

To begin with: do you remember what happened to you the other day, when you tried to overtake your mischievous brother in running, and he, taking advantage of his school-boy legs, led you mercilessly through all the garden walks, without having the grace even to let you catch him at the end? You were quite out of breath; your heart beat so rapidly it almost hurt you; and you were so hot that the perspiration poured in great drops down your face, so that your mamma, quite frightened, took you up in her arms and carried you to the fire; for the coolness of evening was coming on, and a little girl drenched with perspiration is soon chilled.

Tell me now, what connection was there between your overrunning yourself in a race and the extraordinary degree of heat which came over you so soon? Your cheeks were cool and fresh when you began to run; what made them so red all at once, and especially at a moment when the air was cool and fresh in the garden?

You open your eyes in surprise; you had never thought of this. No! that is just the way with little girls. They run; they get hot; it seems as natural as warming oneself in the sun, and they never ask why it is so.

Yet you could almost tell me the "why" yourself, if you stopped to think about it, now that you are what your school-boy brother would say "up to a thing or two;" but to save time, I will help you.

You run as a bird flies, without thinking about it. Nevertheless, if you could see with a magic glass all that takes place in your body while those active little feet are carrying it like a feather across the garden, you would be perfectly amazed. One of these days, when we have finished our present history, I will tell you that other one, which is equally worth the trouble. It is enough for the present to know, that a very complicated piece of work is being carried on there, in which almost all the muscles of the body take part at the same time, contracting and relaxing in turn, like so many springs, of which each either drives forward or holds back a part of the machine. In fact, while your eyes and thoughts are fixed on the butterfly which is flitting away from you through the air, there is going on within you such an unheard-of outlay of efforts as could never be got out of our idlers if the terrible steward did not lash them severely.

Now, his lash, as we have said often enough, is that eternal fire, the materials of which he conveys to all parts of the body. On those special occasions, therefore, he is obliged to make his fire burn much more briskly than usual—exactly like railway engine-drivers, who increase the heat of their fire to get up steam in proportion to the speed they wish to go.

From this you will understand that it is no great wonder that your small frame should get heated from such work as racing and chasing; and that if you pursue it too long, the perspiration which comes out all over you is sufficiently explained.

This is not all, however. The fire, whose strength has to be increased, naturally requires a larger amount of combustible matter than before, and forasmuch as there is only a certain fixed quantity in each drop of blood, whenever the muscles want more than usual, the blood itself must flow to them in greater abundance. Now if it were a question of supplying only one part of the body (as it is, you may remember, of supplying the stomach during the progress of digestion), he might contrive to accomplish his task there by neglecting it elsewhere, and overflow one organ at his ease, at the expense of all the rest. But in this case he is wanted everywhere in the same abundance. It is not a question of taking one muscle's share for the benefit of another. From one end of the body to the other, all want to be deluged at once. And remember that these exigencies do not bring a drop more blood into the body. How is he to get out of his difficulty then, this overwhelmed steward of ours? Well! just as your mamma manages, my dear, when there is more to do than usual in the house;—by running quicker than ever from the cellar to the garret, and from your room to your papa's! That is called doubling oneself; and this gallant blood doubles itself to some purpose. He runs and runs and runs, arrives in hurried streams, and returns full gallop, passing and repassing through the heart, which empties and fills itself in sudden jerks. Unluckily, the poor heart is a delicate sort of person, who does not like having his habits disarranged, and this forced work soon makes him desperate. The other day, in his despair, he knocked with all his strength against the walls of his little chamber, to warn his young mistress that he could bear no more, and that they were both of them in danger. In fact, you ought to know that if one was infatuated enough to go on running too long, one might die of it. When you learn ancient history, you will probably be told of what happened to the soldier of Marathon, who flew like an arrow from the field of battle to the gates of Athens, that he might tell his fellow-citizens a quarter of an hour earlier, that his country was saved; and he fell dead on his arrival.

But it is not the heart only which suffers by this mad career of the blood. During each journey it performs it passes through the lungs, which in their turn are forced to play with hasty jerks. And this is well for our good steward; for the lungs, filling with air at each descent of the diaphragm (if you remember what we have said before), more air, and consequently more oxygen, comes in, and the blood has by this means a larger stock on hand, ready to help him out in the unusual waste which is just then going on in the muscles. I spoke just now of railway steam-engines. See how self-supporting ours is! The greater the amount of fire wanted, the faster the blood flows; and the faster the blood flows, the oftener does the coffer re-fill itself, whence comes the supply of oxygen requisite for keeping up the fire. All this goes on at once, by one impulse, and the balance between the receipts and expenditure settles itself of its own accord. How thankful many families would be if their money-chest would but fill itself in the same way—in exact proportion as they spend the cash! There is only one slight drawback, which is, that the diaphragm gets tired with the unaccustomed gallop it is thus forced into. It falls into convulsions, therefore, like its neighbor the heart, and the breathing is stopped, from having been driven too rapidly. An excellent example for people who want to spend too much at once; showing that Nature herself cries out against it, even when the only thing wanted is atmospheric air.

Now, run if you dare! And, to tell you the truth, it would be a great pity if you did not dare; for our good God has made little children for running. They have nimbler blood than we older grandfathers, more elastic lungs, and consequently more oxygen to spend at a time. But you must confess that it is a great pity we should run all our lives as many people do, without having the slightest idea of these admirable contrivances, thanks to which we are enabled to do it. We can run all the same, it is true, without the knowledge, the little child as easily as the little roebuck, which sets a similar machine in motion. But it is no use talking about the little roebuck; it cannot learn what God has done for it, but the little child can, if he will. Furthermore, there is nothing to be really alarmed about, for those great commotions only occur when we have committed excess; and it is a very good thing, in a general way, for the blood to give us a stroke of his lash from time to time. I told you lately that the fire which sets the organs to work is life; and it is no misfortune to be a little more alive than usual. Besides which, this increased activity of the internal fire does not serve us in running only. Every time that a man makes an effort; every time he lifts a weight, or handles a tool, the blood rushes forward to deluge the muscles that are thus called into play; the heart beats more quickly, and the air streams in greater abundance into the lungs. Look at a man chopping wood. If the log resists too much, if for a minute or two the man has to strike blow after blow without stopping, you will soon see him panting for breath, just as if he had been running a race. On the other hand, he will have gained something from chopping his log besides the right of warming himself before it at the fire. Blood does not carry fire only into the muscles; he supplies them with nourishment also, does he not? Every drop of blood deposits its little offering as it goes by, and consequently the greater the number that pass along, the richer is the harvest for the muscle. Look, accordingly, at the laboring classes. How much healthier and stronger they are than those who do not work! I speak, of course, of working with one's limbs generally; for those poor girls who work from morning to night, sitting on their chairs, are none the better for it, but, on the contrary, worse. There are also certain worthy fellows who, like myself at the present moment, drive a pen over sheets of paper for half a day at a time, whose muscles never get any bigger for it, that is quite clear. Moreover, one condition has to be fulfilled, which unhappily is not always done. The more people labor, the more they ought to eat. To you, who have just been looking at the drama that is performed in the body every time a muscle is set in motion, this is obvious enough. There is no fire without smoke, says the proverb. It would have been much better to have said,—there is no fire without fuel;—and the fuel for our fire is, as you know, what we eat. Try if you can get one stove to burn more brightly than another, if you have put less fuel into it. Yet, alas! this is what many poor wretches are obliged to do but too often; and then the blood, instead of feeding their muscles, consumes them, for the reasons I gave, in telling you the story of Bernard Palissy. Think of this, oh my dear child, when you are grown up, and never grudge those who work for you their proper share of food.

Here I see many other lessons crowding up, out of what you have just learnt.

And first Nature herself, taken as you find her, shows you that manual labor is, for us, a most beneficial condition of existence; that it brings about a re-doubling, an exaltation of life; and that consequently, we have no need to look down upon those who gain their bread, as we word it, by the sweat of their brows. I told you this before, in speaking of the hand, which is of so much more use to those people than to you; and I repeat it now for another reason, viz.: because labor elevates him who undertakes it, and creates a real physical nobility. Barbarians in old times, who knew nothing noble nor grand but war, despised labor, and left it to their slaves; so much so, that the name servile labor, i.e. the labor of slaves, has stuck to it in some places. As for war, the lot of the ancient nobility, I scarcely dare to say much against it, however much I should like to do so on some accounts. For, after all, so long as there are ruffians to trample on the weak, one is only too glad to find brave men ready to risk their lives in keeping such rascals down: so long as there are wolves, we must needs keep shepherds' dogs. But in spite of everything, the best that can be said in favor of war is, that it remains a sad but inevitable necessity, and that to get rid of it, more is wanting than the wish. What a contrast to labor—that contest of Man with Nature;—that merciful and fruitful war, where victories are not estimated like other victories, by the number of the slain, but which, on the contrary, scatters fresh life around it as it spreads; fresh life in the laborer himself, by the very act of work, fresh life around him without, by the fruits that work produces!

Between the man who dies in slaying others, and the man who keeps others alive by living longer himself, it seems cruel to make invidious comparisons; but if it be just to honor the first out of respect for the cause he has defended, whenever that cause is respectable—it is, to say the least of it, not less just to do equal honor to the second.

But let us come down from these philosophic heights, and return to you, dear child; to you, who have nothing to do with war, its massacres or its laurels.

It is true, however, that you have nothing to do either, with chopping wood, and I am not asking you to undertake any such thing. But in the life of a woman, from the time of her childhood upwards, a thousand things arise for the hands to do, and the question is, how often you are likely to feel ashamed of not sending for the servants to do them? Avoid this false and fatal idea as much as possible. The work of the hands dishonors no one; it is honorable. To cast it aside altogether is to make yourself smaller instead of greater; to deprive yourself of one of the glories and the joys of life. If a good thing is set before you at dinner, do you send for the servants to eat it? If an occasion arises for making the blood circulate more rapidly in your veins, and of increasing the strength and life with, in you into the bargain, why make them a present of it? Especially when it cannot be an agreeable present considering that good servants have plenty of such opportunities from morning to night every day.

There was once upon a time a Persian prince staying in Paris, who was taken to a very fashionable ball, that he might see a specimen of European civilization. I am not talking about a prince in the "Arabian Nights;" mine lived, I believe, in the time of Louis Philippe. The beautiful dancers wheeled round, their eyes brilliant with pleasure, in the arms of elegant cavaliers; one would have said that the whole of this airy troop, swaying to and fro in time to the lively flourishes of the music, was animated by one soul; everything seemed full of joy in that large and splendidly lit hall, and mothers secretly envied their daughters as they passed and re-passed before them. Our oriental alone scanned with a disdainful eye this youthful enjoyment.

When it was ended,—"How is this?" said he to his conductor; "did you not tell me that I was to see here the most distinguished families of Paris?"

"Certainly," replied the other; "among those young ladies who were just now dancing before you, there were at least twenty of the grandest heiresses of France."

"Young ladies who dance! Come, come! In my country we have dancers, but they are paid for it. Our wives are never permitted to dance themselves. That is all very well for the common people!"

Remember, when needful, the contempt of this Persian prince, my dear child; and let me beg of you, work for yourself. The dance of labor is worth quite as much as that of the ball-room, when you give your heart to it. It is even worth more, very often; and next time I will tell you why.