PART IX.
FORMULA FOR THE LESSON ON THE LUNGS AND RESPIRATION.
1. My lungs are the bellows or breathing machines of my body.
2. They are composed of a soft, fleshy substance, full of small air-cells and tubes. They are porous and spongy when healthy, but in some diseases become an almost solid mass, through which the air cannot pass.
3. I breathe by drawing the air through my windpipe, along the tubes into the cells of my lungs, swelling them out, and causing my chest to expand; then the chest contracts, and the impure vapor in my lungs is pressed out through the same tubes, windpipe, nose, and mouth, into the atmosphere.
4. I cannot live without breathing, because if the air does not go down into my lungs, the dark blood in them is not changed into pure red blood, and goes back through my body dark blood, which cannot keep me alive.
5. If I would have healthy lungs,
I must breathe pure air,
I must live in the sunlight,
I must keep my body clean,
I must wear loose clothing,
I must wear clean clothing,
I must sit and stand erect,
I must keep all parts of my body warm,
I must not change my winter clothing too early in the spring,
I must avoid draughts of cool air,
I must not rush into the cold when I am in a perspiration,
I must not poison my lungs with alcohol or tobacco.
QUESTIONS FOR THE FORMULA.
1. What are the lungs?
2. Describe the lungs.
3. How do you breathe?
4. Why can you not live without breathing?
5. What is necessary if you would have healthy lungs?
THE AIR AND THE LUNGS.
The air which enters through the nose and mouth passes into a tube of muscles and ring-like pieces of cartilage. The upper part of this tube is the voice-box or larynx, covered by a spoon-shaped lid which closes when we swallow; the lower part is the trachea, and the two parts are the windpipe. The trachea divides into two branches, the bronchial tubes, one for each lung. These tubes divide again and again like the branches of a tree, and end in exceedingly small sacs or bags. The air in these sacs, or air-cells, gives oxygen to the blood in the tiny blood-vessels of the lungs and takes from them the poison, carbonic-acid gas, water, and impurities, which it carries back through the windpipe into the outside air.
QUESTIONS ON THE LUNGS AND RESPIRATION.
Of what are the lungs composed?—"Of a soft, fleshy substance, full of small air-cells and tubes."
Of what use are the lungs?—"They are the breathing machines of the body."
How do the lungs appear when healthy?—"Porous and spongy."
How does the air get into the lungs?—"The air flows through the nose and mouth, into the windpipe and along the air-tubes, into the air-cells of the lungs."
What does the air do in the lungs?—"It swells the lungs and causes the chest to expand."
What do you mean by expand?—"To increase in size."
How is the air expelled from the lungs?—"The chest contracts and sends the impure air through the tubes and windpipe, the nose and mouth, into the atmosphere."
What do you mean by contracts?—"Becomes smaller."
What do you mean by atmosphere?—"The air."
Of what use is the air when it is in the lungs?—"It makes the blood pure."
Why can you not live without breathing?—"Because, if I do not breathe, pure air cannot get into the lungs to make the bad blood pure, and I cannot live if the dark, impure blood is sent back again through my body."
Why must you live in the sunlight?—"Because the sunlight helps to purify the blood and strengthen the body."
Why must you wear loose clothing?—"Because tight clothing stops the circulation of the blood."
Why must you avoid tight-lacing?—"Because tight-lacing crowds the ribs against the lungs, so that the lungs cannot move freely."
Why should you wear clean clothing?—"That nothing impure may pass into the body through the pores of the skin."
Why should you keep the body clean?—"That the pores of the skin may not be closed, but remain open to let the perspiration pass through."
What has the cleanliness of the body to do with the health of the lungs?—"If the body is not kept clean, the perspiratory pores become clogged."
What happens when the perspiratory pores are clogged?—"The impure particles which should pass through them stay in the body, and cause disease in the lungs or other parts."
Why should you sit and stand erect?—"Because, if I am in the habit of stooping, my lungs will be crowded, and will not have enough room to move freely."
Why should you keep all parts of the body warm?—"Because
chilling any part of the body causes the blood to chill in that part, and thus hinders its circulation."
Why should you not change your winter clothing too early in the spring of the year?—"I may take cold if not warmly clothed during the cool days of early spring."
Why should you avoid draughts of cool air?—"Because the cool air blows upon some parts of the body and closes the pores of the skin, checking the perspiration, and hindering the circulation of the blood."
Why should you not rush suddenly from a warm to a cool place?—"Because when warm the pores of the skin are open; if I rush suddenly into the cool air, these pores are closed too quickly."
Why does stopping the perspiration hurt the lungs more or less?—"The impurities it ought to carry away remain in the body, make the blood impure, and produce disease in some part; very often that part is the lungs."
What harm does alcohol do in the lungs?—"It fills the lungs with impure blood."
What harm does it do to the air-cells?—"It hardens the walls of the air-cells of the lungs."
What harm is done by the hardening of these air-cells?—"1. The lungs cannot take in enough of the gas called oxygen to purify the blood perfectly. 2. The gases or vapors in the lungs cannot pass freely through the hardened air-cells."
What happens from this?—"The lungs become diseased."
From what disease do some hard drinkers suffer?—"Alcoholic consumption, for which there is no cure." [See Appendices] on Alcohol and Tobacco.
1. The upper jaw.
2. The lower jaw.
3. The tongue.
4. The roof of the mouth.
5. The food-pipe.
6. The windpipe.
7, 8. Where the saliva is made.
9. The stomach.
10. The liver.
11. Where the bile is made.
12. The duct through which the bile passes to the small intestine.
13. The upper part of the small intestine.
14. Where the pancreatic juice is made.
15. The small intestine.
16. The opening of the small into the large intestine.
17-20. The large intestine.
21. The spleen.
22. The spinal column.