The Creation of God by Jacob Hartmann (color ebook reader TXT) 📖
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2. Nearly one-half of the weight of the body consists of the skeletal muscles, and about one-quarter of the total blood in the body is contained in them.
3. The muscles are always producing carbonic acid (CO2), and when they contract there is a sudden and extensive increase of the normal production.
4. Oxygen is necessary for the life of the muscle; it is for the nervous tissue, but for muscular tissue especially.
5. When venous blood, instead of arterial, is sent through the blood-vessel of a muscle, the irritability speedily disappears, and unless fresh oxygen is administered the muscle soon ceases to act and dies.
6. The oxidation power is determined by the tissue and by the tissue only.
7. All the available evidence goes to show that oxidation takes place in all the tissues and not in the adjoining blood.
The master tissues of the body are the muscular and nervous tissues. All other tissues may be regarded as the servants to these.
These tissues are the all-important tissues in the body. The muscular tissues constitute and carry out the power, force, or energy of the body. They set the body in motion. They do the work. They regulate the delicate movements of the organs of special sense or function, as the eye, the ear, the tongue, the nose, larynx, thorax, abdomen; and fighting, defending, building, destroying, labor and mechanical skill of whatever nature, depend on them. Of exercise, sport, pain and pleasure, sensation, emotion, expression of the face, in fact all in all in every act of life, the muscles, the voluntary muscles, must perform the work.
They are called the muscles of Animal life. They are Voluntary; they may be set in action at will.
For guidance, control, coördination, sensation, and motion, the muscular tissues are dependent on the nervous tissues.
It is not difficult to understand, I think, as will be explained later on, that all muscular movements are perfectly natural, purely physical and mechanical.
The nervous tissue will be a little more difficult to comprehend, for causes that are reasonable and plain.
All animals are provided with two distinct sets of organs: 1. The master tissues, the nervous and muscular tissues, the voluntary muscular tissues, which are the organs of animal life, the voluntary, the active organs that do the work, consume the food, and throw off the waste material; and 2. The servants to these, the involuntary tissues, the organs of organic life that prepare the food, carry it to the master tissues, and bring away the waste material.
The inherent qualities of both these sets of organs are instinctive, with this difference—the former, the voluntary, the controlling and working master tissues, are capable of development, progressively, acquiring intelligence, maturing into educatedness, etc.
The latter, the involuntary, are simply servants to these, and they perform their functions in the same manner instinctively all through life.
The muscular and nervous tissues are the educable tissue. By repetition, practice, and exercise they improve and at length exhibit certain degrees of skill in the performance of their work.
On the other hand, the organs of mastication, deglutition, digestion, absorption, excretion, circulation, and respiration simply perform their functions instinctively, without possessing the capacity of improvement, and without regard to volition. These act involuntarily throughout life, as preparers and carriers of nourishment to the master tissues, and removers of waste material.
The work of the muscular tissues is comparatively easy to understand. We can see the work done, can account for it, can demonstrate it. The performances are capable of absolute proof, and controversy therefore is out of question.
The nervous tissues present quite another state of things. The great mass of cerebral matter, with all its complicated organs and their appendages, are hid within the cranium of the skull. We have no ocular proof of anything that is done by that structure, or of the manner in which the tissue acts. That we can see, hear, taste, and smell we know. We recognize the organs that perform these functions. Sensation, feeling, memory, thinking, cannot so easily be accounted for. Among the masses it is a mystery to-day. The doctrine of a dual existence in man is old, still it is held on to with remarkable tenacity. The church still teaches and preaches that soul or spirit is a part of some great personality or individuality not at all connected with nature—supernatural, divine, godly. This supernatural part, it is said, is placed in man some time during the process of birth. This subject will be more fully discussed farther on, in order to show what queer views theologians formerly held on some scientific subjects. I beg to quote from a Talmudistic scholar and philosopher some thousand years ago:
Jehuda ha-Levi ben Samuel, whose Arabic name was Abulhassan, considered an authority and philosopher of repute, was born in Castile 1085 A.D. He adopted medicine for his profession, but was also a traveler, philosopher, and student, and a Talmudistic scholar and writer. He wrote a book called “Sepher Hakusir: Book Kusari.” It is a philosophico-theologico-scientific treatise, conducted in dialogue between himself and the king of Kusar, who became convinced of the truth of his argument and was converted to the Hebrew faith.
In the fourth part, section 25, page 246, Jehuda ha-Levi is explaining the harmonious working of the whole universe, and in evidence thereof he cites the world, soul, and year, very learnedly setting forth the mysterious working of creation, the supernatural origin and significance of the Hebrew letters, the secret and hidden meaning of their number, etc. This is based upon the principle that one rests on three, three on seven, and seven on twelve, as follows:
World: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon.
Man: Wisdom, riches, dominion, life, kindness, posterity, peace.
Year: The seven days in the week.
The twelve single one letters not mentioned—Man: Organs of hearing, seeing, smelling, speaking, tasting, begetting, dealing, walking, thinking, anger, laughing, sleeping.
World: The twelve Zodiacs.
“One on three and three on seven and seven on twelve. And these numbers have their functions in common one with another. For example, ‘the kidneys counsel,’ ‘the spleen laughs,’ ‘the stomach sleeps,’ ‘the liver gets angry.’ It is not to be wondered at that the kidneys have power to give counsel; we observe something similar when the testicles have been removed; one that has been castrated is weaker than a woman; the beard does not grow, and, what is more significant, the person can no longer give advice, counsel. The spleen laughs because of her natural functions, by reason of the blood being protected against the black gall and thickening and turbidity, and from this clearness, purity, nothing but brightness and joy comes. The liver is angry because of the bitterness she forms. The stomach sleeps by reason that it stands in relation with the organs of nourishment. The heart is not thought of, because it is the king. No more do they take in consideration the lungs and diaphragm, because they are necessarily so constituted to be of service to the heart; accidentally only do they serve the rest of the body, and are originally not designed to serve. The brain is under the senses, which emanate from that organ, and are thence distributed. Moreover, as to the organs that are situated below the diaphragm, therein lies a deep meaning. These are the primary vegetations, the primary generatives. The diaphragm separates the vegetative from the animal life, as the throat separates the animal from the rational (Plato in his Timæus explains). Out of the primary generatives, out of the world vegetative, there where the root of being exists, the seed comes, and there the embryo is fashioned out of four elements. God has selected certain parts for his sacrifices—fat, blood, the peritoneum on the liver, the kidneys. On the contrary, he did not select the heart, or the brain, or the lungs, or the diaphragm. This is a deep mystery; the explanation is forbidden. Therefore the prescript, that the Jezisa is permitted to be studied only after undergoing some preparation, by few persons, and only under certain formalities,” etc.
Maimonides, or Moses ben Maimon (Rambam), 1131–1205 A.D., wrote God Hazaker, the Strong Hand, a very celebrated commentary on the Talmud. He held similar views, and is also considered a very learned authority.
The voluntary muscles are for the most part placed in close relation with the skeleton, being attached to the hard parts, and moving these in different directions by their contraction.
The muscles are all symmetrical, and with the exception of the sphincters and one or two others are in pairs. Each muscle constitutes a separate organ, composed chiefly of contractile fibrous tissue, which is called muscular, and of other tissues and parts which may be regarded as accessory. Thus muscular fibers are connected together in bundles or fasciculi, and these fasciculi are again embedded in and united together by a quantity of connective tissue, forming the perimysium; and the whole is usually inclosed in an external sheath of the same material. Many of the muscles are connected at their more or less tapering extremities with tendons by which they are attached to the bones or hard parts; and the tendinous bands frequently run to a considerable length either on the surface of the muscle or between its fibers.
There are two chief kinds of muscular tissue, the striped, and the plain or unstriped, and they are distinguished by structural peculiarities and mode of action. The striped form of muscular fibers is sometimes called voluntary muscle, because all muscles under the control of the will are constructed of it. The plain or unstriped variety is often termed involuntary, because it alone is found in the greater number of muscles over which the will has no power.
The involuntary or unstriped muscles are made up of elongated, spindle-shaped fiber cells, which in their most perfect form are flat, from about 1⁄4500 to 1⁄3500 of an inch broad, and about 1⁄600 to 1⁄300 of an inch in length; very clear, and granular and brittle so that when they break they often have abruptly rounded or square extremities.
The fibers of involuntary muscles form the proper muscular coats of the digestive canal, æsophagus, urinary bladder, trachea, bronchi, gall-bladder, blood-vessels, lymphatics, etc. To this kind of fiber, muscular fiber, the term organic is often applied. The sympathetic or ganglionic portion of the nervous system, which consists of a chain of ganglia connected by nervous cords, extends from the cranium to the pelvis, along each side of the vertebral column, and from which nerves with ganglia proceed to the viscera in the thoracic, abdominal, and pelvic cavities. By its distribution, as well as by its peculiar mode of action, this system is less immediately connected with the mind, as conducting either sensation or the impulses of the will; it is more closely connected than the cerebro-spinal system is with the processes of organic life.
The muscles of animal life, or striped muscles, include the whole class of voluntary muscles, the heart, and those muscles neither completely voluntary nor completely involuntary, etc. All these muscles are composed of fleshy bundles called fasciculi, inclosed in coverings of fibro-cellular tissue, by which each is at once connected with, and isolated from, those adjacent to it. Each bundle is again divided into smaller ones similarly ensheathed and similarly divisible; and so on, through
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