Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1877-05-24
MarYelS of Man.

While the gastric juice has a mild,
bland, swedish taste, it possesses the
power Of dissolving the hardest food that
can be swallowed; it has no influence
whatever on the soft and-delicate fibers of
the living stomach, nor upon the living
hand, but, at the moment of death, it be-
gins 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 atmos-
phere is full of it; it penetrates the moi
some dungeon, and visits the deepest,
darkest caves of the earth; no palace door
can shut it out, no drawer so secret as to
escape its presence; every breath Of wind
dashes it upon the open eye, and yet that
eye is not blinded because there is a foun-
tain of the blandest fluid in Nature in
cessantly emptying itself under the eye
lid, which spreads it over the surface of
the ball at every winking, and washes ev-
DRY atom of dust away. But this liquid,
so mild, and so well adapted to the eye it
self, has some acridity, which, under Cir
Cumstances, becomes SO decided as to be
scalding to the skin, and would rot away
the eyelid5 were it not that along the
edges Of them there are little oil manu-
factories, which spread over their sur
face coating, us imperviOus to the liq-
uids necessary for keeping the eyeball
washed clean as the best varnish is imper-
viouS to water.
The breath which leaves the lungs has
been so perfectly Invested of its life giving
properties that to rebreathe it, unmixed
with other air, the moment it escapes
from TIE mouth, would cause immediate
death by SutfOcatiOn while If il lowered
about us, q more or less destructive iniiu-
encc over health and life would be occa-
stoned; but it is made of nature so much
lighter than the common ar that the in
slant it escapes the lips and nostrils it as
cends to the higher regions, above the
breathing point, there to be rectified, ZEN
ovated and sent back again, replete with
purity and life. How rapidly it aseends
is beautifully exhibited every frosty morn
ing.
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 voice, and makes of it the whisper of
love, the soft words of affection, the tender
tones Of human sympathy, the sweetest
strains of ravishing music, the persuasive
eloQuence of the finished orator,
If well-made man be extended on the
ground, his arms at right angles with the
body, a circle, making the navel lis cen
ter, will just take in the head, the finger
ends and 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 of the foot; while the distance from
the edge of the hair on the forehead to the
end of the chin is one tenth the length Of
the whole stature
Of the sixty-two primary elements
known in Nature, only eighteen are found
in the human body, and of these, seven
are metallic. Iror is found in the blood,
phosphorus in the brain; limestone in the
bile; lime in the bones; dust and ashes in
all! Not only these eighteen human ele-
ments, but the whole sixty-two, of which
the universe is made, have their essential
basis in the four substances, oxygen,
hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon, represent
ing the more familiar names Of fire, wa
ter, saltpeter and charcoal; and such is
man, the lord of earth a spark of fire, "a
drop of water, a grain of gunpowder, an
atom Of charcoal !-Hdlps Journal Of
Health.