Nature has no panacea like it. Try the experiment, and it will revolutionize your condition. And the longer you try, the more will it regenerate your body and your mind. Even if you have the blues, deep breathing will soon dispel them, especially if you add vigorous exercise. Would you even put forth your greatest mental exertions in speaking or writing, keep your lungs clear up to their fullest, liveliest action. Would you even breathe forth your highest, holiest orisons of thanksgiving and worship, deepening your inspiration of fresh air will likewise deepen and quicken your divine inspiration. Nor can even bodily pleasures be fully enjoyed except in and by copious breathing. In short, proper breathing is the alpha and omega of all physical, and thereby of all mental and moral function and enjoyment.
A Man full of Holes.
Yes, made of holes!
A gentleman once told me a story, as follows. We were travelling on the Ohio River, on board of a steamer.
“You see that bank over opposite?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Well, thereby hangs a little story. I always laugh when I think of it, or pass the spot, which is often. A fellow sat looking at that spot, watching the thousands of swallows that were continually flitting to and fro, in and out of their nests, and laughing immoderately to himself. I approached, and ventured to inquire the cause of his mirth, that I might partake of it.
“Well, you see that bank and all them nests? Well, one day I went down on the boat and noticed them. When I came back, there had meantime been a heavy rain storm which washed the bank away, and left the holes all sticking out;” and the fellow continued to laugh as though he would split himself, probably from the idea of the holes “sticking out.” I wondered how he could see them if the bank around was washed away.
Still the man full of holes is a fact. According to Krause, quoted in Gray’s and Wilson’s works on anatomy, there are twenty-eight hundred (2800) pores in the skin of the human body to the square inch; and the number of square inches to an average-sized man is twenty-five hundred (2500). This would give some seven million pores in the whole body. These pores, or tubes, are one fourth of an inch in length; hence, the entire length of them all is twenty-eight miles.
That part of the skin is the healthiest which is the most exposed to the air, as the face and hands. That part the most diseased from which the air is most excluded, as the feet. Three fourths of all persons over fourteen years of age have diseased feet; either corns, chilblains, or diseased joints or nails.