Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1877-11-21
The Marvels of Man.

While the gastric juice has a mild,
bland, sweetish taste, it possesses the
power of dissolving the hardest food
that can be swallowed. 1t has no in
fluence whatever on the soft and deli
cate fibres of the living stomach, nor
upon the living hand, but at the mo-
ment of death il begins to eat them
away with the power of the strongest
acids.
There is dust on sea, on land, in the
valley and on the mountain-top there is
dust always and everywhere; the at
mosphere is full of it; it penetrates the
nOisome dungeon and visits the deep
est, darkest caves of the earth; 10 pal
ace-door can shut it out, no drawer so
secret as to escape its presence; every
breath of wind dashes it upon the open
eye, yet that eye is not blinded, because
under the eyelid there is necessarily
emptying itself fountain of the bland
est fluid i'm Nature, which spreads it
self over the surface of the eye at every
winking and washes every atom of
dust away. But this liquid. so mild
and so well adapted to the eye itself,
has some acridity, which, under certain
circumstances, becomes so decided as
to be scalding TO the skin and would rot
away the eylids were it not that along
the edges of them there are little oil
manufactures, which spread over their
surface coating as impervious to the
liquids necessary for keeping the eye
ball washed clean, as the best varnish
is imperyious to water.
The breath which leaves the lungs
has been SO perfectly divested Ofits life
giving pr, perties that to re-breathe it,
unmixed with other air, the moment it
escapes from the mouth, would cause
immediate death by sufiocation, while
if il lowered about us a more or less de-
structive influence over health and life
would be OccasiOned. But it is made of
a nature so much lighter than the COM
mon air that the instant that it escapes
the lips and nostrils it ascends to the
higher regions above the breathing
point. there to be rectified, renovated
and sent back again, replete with puri-
ty and life. How rapidly it ascends is
beautifully exhibited every frosty NOR
ming.
But, foul and deadly as the expired
air is, Nature, wisely economical in all
her works and ways, turns it TO good
account in its outward passage through
the organs of the voice, making ofit the
whispers of love, the soft words of af-
fection, the tender tones Of human SYM
pathy, the sweetest strains of ravishing
music. the persuasive eloquence of the
finished orator.
Ifa well-made man be extended on the
ground. his arms at right angles with
the body. a circle, making the navel its
center, will just take in the head, the |
finger-ends and the feet. The distance
from top TO toe is precisely the same as
that between the tips of the fingers |
when the arms are extended. The |
length of the body is just six times that
edge of the hair on the forehead to the |
end of the chin is one-tenth the length |
of the whole nature. ..
Of the sixty-twO primary elements
known in Nature, only eighteen are
found in the human body, and of these
seven are metallic Iron is found in the |
blood, phosphorus in the brain, lime
stone in the bile, lime in the bones, and
dust and ashes in all Not only these |
eighteen human elements, but the whole
sixty-twO of which the universe is made,
have their essential basis in the four
substances of oxygen, hydrogen, nitro
gen and carbon, representing the more
familiar names of fire, water, saltpeter
and charcoal. And such is man, the
lord of earth, a spark of fire, drop
of water, grain of gunpowder, an at
ON of charcoal Hairs Journal Of
HEALTH