A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) by Calvin Cutter (lightweight ebook reader txt) 📖
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450. In infancy and childhood, the function of nutrition is very active; a large amount of food is taken, to supply the place of what is lost by the action of the absorbents, and also to contribute to the growth of the body. In middle age, nutrition and absorption are more equal; but in old age, the absorbents are more active than the nutrient vessels. The size, consequently, diminishes, the parts become weaker, the bones more brittle, the body bends forward, and every function exhibits marks of decay and dissolution.
451. A striking instance of active absorption in middle 204 age was exhibited in the person of Calvin Edson, of Vermont, who was exhibited in the large towns of New England, as the “living skeleton.” In early manhood he was athletic, and weighed one hundred and sixty pounds; but the excessive action of the absorbents over the nutrient vessels, reduced his weight, in the interval of eighteen years, to sixty pounds.
448. What occurs when a muscle is divided? 449. State some of the results of an increased action of the nutrient arteries. 450. When is nutrition most active? How in middle age? How in old age? 451. Relate a striking instance of active absorption in middle age.
452. Instances, on the other hand, have occurred, of the action of the nutrient vessels exceeding, in an extreme degree, those of absorption; as in the person of a colored girl, thirteen years of age, who was exhibited in New York in the summer of 1840. She was of the height of misses at that age, but weighed five hundred pounds. Several cases are on record of persons weighing eight hundred pounds.
453. As already mentioned, the blood is the nutritive fluid of animals. When this fluid is coagulated, a thick, jelly-like mass floats in the serum, called coagulum. This coagulated mass is composed of fibrin, and red globulated matter. The color of the red globules is owing to the presence of iron, though some physiologists think it depends on an animal substance of a gelatinous character.
Observation. That portion of the serum which remains fluid after coagulation by heat has taken place, is called se-ros´i-ty. It is more abundant in the blood of old, than in that of young animals; and it forms the “red gravy” in roasted meats.
454. The blood is not necessarily red. It may be white, as in most fish. There is no animal in which the blood is equally red in all parts of the body. The ligaments, tendons, and other white tissues in man are supplied but sparingly with red blood. The fluid that supplies these tissues is whitish.
452. Of excessive nutrition in early life. 453. Describe the parts that enter into the composition of the blood. What part of the blood forms the red gravy in roasted meats? 454. Is the blood necessarily red? Of what color is the blood of the fish? What part of the human system has white blood?
455. Healthy nutrition requires pure blood. If the nutrient arteries of the bones are supplied with impure blood, they will become soft or brittle, their vitality will be impaired, and disease will be the ultimate result. The five hundred muscles receive another portion of the blood. These organs are attached to, and act upon the bones. Upon the health and contractile energy of the muscles depends the ability to labor. Give these organs of motion impure blood, which is an unhealthy stimulus, and they will become enfeebled, the step will lose its elasticity, the movement of the arm will be inefficient, and every muscle will be incapacitated to perform its usual amount of labor.
456. When the stomach, liver, and other organs subservient to the digestion of food, are supplied with impure blood, the digestive process is impaired, causing faintness and loss of appetite, also a deranged state of the intestines, and, in general, all the symptoms of dyspepsia.
457. The delicate structure of the lungs, in which the blood is or should be purified, needs the requisite amount of pure blood to give them vigor and health. When the blood is not of this character, the lungs themselves lose their tone, and, even if permitted to expand freely, have not power fully to change the impure quality of this circulating fluid.
458. The health and beauty of the skin require that the blood should be well purified; but, if the arteries of the skin receive vitiated blood, pimples and blotches appear, and the individual suffers from “humors.” Drinks, made of various 206 kinds of herbs, as well as pills and powders, are taken for this affection. These will never have the desired effect, while the causes of impure blood exist.
455–462. Give the hygiene of nutrition. 455. What is the effect of impure blood upon the bones? On the muscles? 456. On the digestive organs? 457. On the lungs? 458. What is the effect if the vessels of the skin are supplied with vitiated blood?
459. If the nutrient arteries convey impure material to the brain, the nervous and bilious headache, confusion of ideas, loss of memory, impaired intellect, dimness of vision, and dulness of hearing, will be experienced; and in process of time, the brain becomes disorganized, and the brittle thread of life is broken.
Observations. 1st. An exertion of any organ beyond its powers, induces weakness that will disturb the nutrition of the part that is called into action; and it recovers its energy more slowly in proportion to the excess of the exertion. The function of the organ may be totally and permanently destroyed, if the exertion is extremely violent. We sometimes see palsy produced in a muscle simply by the effort to raise too great a weight. The sight is impaired, and total blindness may be produced, by exposure to light too strong or too constant. The mind may be deranged, or idiocy may follow the excess of study or the over-tasking of the brain.
2d. When the function of an organ is permanently impaired or destroyed by over-exertion, the nutrition of the part is rendered insufficient, or is entirely arrested; and then the absorbents remove it wholly or partially, as they do every thing that is no longer useful. Thus, in palsied patients, a few years after the attack, we often find scarce any trace of the palsied muscles remaining; they are reduced almost to simple cellular tissue. The condition of the calf of the leg, in a person having a club-foot, is a familiar proof of this.
460. The blood may be made impure, by the chyle being deficient in quantity or defective in quality. This state of 207 the chyle may be produced by the food being improper in quantity or quality, or by its being taken in an improper manner, at an improper time, and when the system is not prepared for it. The remedy for impure blood produced in any of these ways is to correct the injudicious method of using food. (See Chapters XV. and XVI.)
459. How does impure blood affect the brain? What is the effect when any organ is exerted beyond its powers? What is the effect when an organ is permanently impaired? 460. How may the blood become impure?
461. The blood may also be rendered impure, by not supplying it with oxygen in the lungs, and by the carbon not being eliminated from the system through this channel. The remedy for “impurities of the blood,” produced in this manner, would be, to carefully reduce to practice the directions in the chapters on the hygiene of the respiratory organs, relative to the free movements of the ribs and diaphragm, and the proper ventilation of rooms.
462. A retention of the waste products of the skin produces impure blood. When the vessels of the skin, by which the waste, useless material is eliminated from the system, have become inactive by improper and inadequate clothing, or by a want of cleanliness, the dead, injurious atoms of matter are retained in the circulatory vessels. The only successful method of purifying the blood and restoring health when this condition exists, is to observe the directions given relative to clothing and bathing. (See Chapters XXXIII. and XXXIV.)
Observation. If the blood has become “impure,” or “loaded with humors,” (an idea generally prevalent,) it is not and cannot be “purified” by taking patent pills, powders, drops, &c. But, on the contrary, by observing the suggestions in the preceding paragraphs, the blood can be freed of its impurities, and, what is of greater importance, such “injurious humors” will be prevented.
461. Mention another means by which the blood may be made impure. How remedied? 462. What is the effect of want of cleanliness upon the blood? What is said respecting “humors” in the blood?
Fig. 88.
Fig. 88. A front view of the organs within the chest and abdomen. 1, 1, 1, 1, The muscles of the chest. 2, 2, 2, 2, The ribs. 3, 3, 3, The upper, middle, and lower lobes of the right lung. 4, 4, The lobes of the left lung. 5, The right ventricle of the heart. 6, The left ventricle. 7, The right auricle of the heart. 8, The left auricle. 9, The pulmonary artery. 10, The aorta. 11, The vena cava descendens. 12, The trachea. 13, The œsophagus. 14, 14, 14, 14, The pleura. 15, 15, 15, The diaphragm. 16, 16, The right and left lobe of the liver. 17, The gall-cyst. 18, The stomach. 26, The spleen. 19, 19, The duodenum. 20, The ascending colon. 21, The transverse colon. 25, The descending colon. 22, 22, 22, 22, The small intestine. 23, 23, The abdominal walls turned down. 24, The thoracic duct, opening into the left subclavian vein, (27.)
463. The nutrient portion of the food is poured into the left subclavian vein, (24, 27, fig. 88,) at the lower part of the neck, and is carried to the right cavities of the heart. The fluid in these cavities consists of the chyle incorporated with the impure blood. Neither of these two elements is fitted to promote the growth or repair the waste of the body. They must be subjected to a process, by which the first can be converted into blood, and the second freed of its carbonic acid gas and water. This is effected by the Respiratory Organs.
464. The RESPIRATORY ORGANS are the Lungs, (lights,) the Tra´che-a, (windpipe,) the Bronch´i-a, (subdivisions of the trachea,) and the Air-Ves´i-cles, (air-cells at the extremities of the bronchia.) The Di´a-phragm, (midriff,) Ribs, and several Muscles, also aid in the respiratory process.
465. The LUNGS are conical organs, one on each side of the chest, embracing the heart, (fig. 88,) and separated from each other by a membranous partition. The color of the lungs is a pinkish gray, mottled, and variously marked with black. Each lung is divided into lobes, by a long and deep 210 fissure, which extends from the
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