Fibrine………………. 3
Clot. Globules Albumen.. 125 130
Coloring matter…… 2 127
——
1000
——]
To conclude, I must give you an account of the two ounces which still remain of the 127 of globules, albumen taking up only 125, as you know. Those two poor little ounces—the remainder of the thousand with which we started—would you believe it?—they alone have the honor of conferring upon the blood its beautiful red color. They constitute the coloring matter of the globules, and you will never guess its chief element. It is iron; ay, actually iron, young lady—the iron of swords and bayonets. We often accuse it of tingeing the earth with blood; and you may now know further, that it reddens blood itself by way of compensation. Do not trouble yourself as to where it comes from. Our fields are full of it, our very plants have stores of it. It sometimes happens that our digestive apparatus, put out of order by other occupations, fails to make use of the amount of iron offered to it; in which case the blood is discolored, and the face turns pallid as wax: this is an illness requiring great care. If it should ever befall you, you will not be surprised, after to-day's lesson, to hear the doctor say that you must have some iron. But be easy—you will not have to swallow it whole! If you will take my advice, you will obey the doctor's orders as soon as you can.
Not that looking pale signifies any thing: indeed, some young ladies think it an advantage. But it is no advantage to any body when the blood-globules are distressed for want of their proper supply of iron, and do their work grudgingly, like ill-fed laborers. Nothing can go on without them, you know, and they are people whom it is not well to leave too long out of sorts. Else languor comes on; languor which is the beginning of death: and pray remember that iron, which so often causes death, is equally useful for keeping it at bay. By sending it to the discolored globules, you give them back their energy and brilliancy together.
I have come here to the end of all that is known with any certainty about these wonderful globules which are to us the medium of life. Shall I go further, is the question, and take you with me into the fields of supposition, so full of noxious weeds? And yet why not? Science owes its present position to the praiseworthy rule of never adopting any theory which is not supported by well-established facts; and I would be the last to advise a change. Were I to tell you, what I am now going to say to you, at a meeting of the British Association of Science, they would turn me out of the room, and with very good reason. Nothing ought to be taught there but what can be proved. But this is of no consequence to you and me, and we have a right to amuse ourselves a little, after having worked so hard.
Well, there is an idea which nothing shall ever drive out of my head, however imperfectly it may be proved as yet; namely, that each of our globules is an animated being; and that our life is the mysterious result of these millions of lesser lives, each of them insignificant in itself; in the same way that the mighty existence of a nation, is a compound of crowds of existences, each, for the most part, without individual importance. Take our own or any other country as an instance; where millions of brains, many of them by no means first-rate in power, go to form a national character, the highest (as each nation is apt to think of itself) in the world. According to this idea, you must be a sort of nation yourself, my dear child, which is gratifying to think of on the whole.
This is much more extraordinary than what I told you some time ago, of the individual life of the organs, each of which on this new system would be a province in itself! Do not exclaim too hastily. Whether the globules are animated or not, it is very certain, let me tell you, that your life depends entirely upon them; that it is weakened if they are weakened; that it revives with them; and that whether you attribute individual life to them or not, makes no alteration in the fact: their action upon you remains the same. And he must be a very clever man who can show me the exact difference between action and life. Hereafter, when we have descended the scale of the animal world together, and are arrived at the study of what are called microscopic animals, you will better understand the words which appear so strange to you now. What little our feeble instruments have revealed to us so far, of the history of those globules, places them almost on a level with those strange creatures, inexplicable to us, which are found in innumerable multitudes, in a variety of liquids. We trace in them the beginning of organization; their form and size are alike in all individuals of the same species; and species vary enough to induce one to believe, that there is a necessary relation between an animal's way of life and that of its globules. If the microscope has not yet caught them in any overt living act, who can be surprised? it is only dead blood which has been submitted to the test. They ought to be observed in the exercise of their functions, in the living animal itself, as has been done to some extent in the frog; and if our foolish chat could influence scientific observers, I would say to them what M. Leverrier said years ago to the astonished astronomers: "Look yonder; you ought to see a light there with which you are not yet acquainted!"
I am carrying you a long way on the wings of my fancy, my dear child; but have no fears; I will not let you fall. This life of our globules, which would, after all, be only one mystery the more among many, opens before our eyes a magnificent vista of the uniformity in the scheme of creation; which goes on repeating itself, while enlarging its circles to infinity. We may, all of us, be only so many globules of the great invisible fabric of humanity, in which we go up and down one after another; and those vast globes which our telescopes follow through celestial space, may be but globules of one, as yet unknown, to which the Almighty alone can give a name.
Take this page to your father, my dear child, if you do not understand it rightly; and now, shake hands, my history is ended!