Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1877-04-19
Our Interior Department.

The inside of an alleged human being
is curious study, regarded as recepta-
Gle for diversified food. The stomach is
eccentric and whimsical in its indivictual-
ity, so to speak. The gastric juice is a
creature of elective affinities like Jim
Smiley's jumping frog.
A. professor of chemistry, in a treatise
on food, has just made disclosure which
will startle and shock the entire country.
He says: +" When we pour milk into cup
of tea or coffee, the albumen of the milk
and the tannin of the tea instantly unite
and form leather, or minute fakes CT the
same compound which is produced in the
texture of the tanned hide, and which
makes it leather as distinguished from the
original skin. In the course Of a year a
tea -drinker of average habits will have
imbibed leather enough to make pair of
shoes, if it could be put into the proper
shape for the purpose"
This is doubtless entirely true, but it
stops so far short of the truth as to be no
more valuable than cheap falsehood.
We drink, every one of US, a pair of
boots year; but observe how much else
we devour.
We carry iron enough IN our blood con-
stantly to make horse shoe.
w IdfC CliouS9u oil 5lildOCouo hiLh III
our mortal frame to make, if properly
separated and baked, dozen good sized
bricks.
We proverbially eat peck of dirt a
year.
An eagerly pisciverous person-espe-
cially if he live almost exclusively on
Goldfish balls-devours phosphorus and
birthstone enough TO make a twentyfv
cent box of matches (stamped) every week.
The man who carelessly tips glass of
lager into his stomach seldom indulgeS in
the solemn reflection that he has begun
the manufacture of a hat; yet such is the
case. The malt of the beer and the chyle
of the stomach instantly unite and form
felt, or minute flakes of the same COM
pound seen so often in the hat factories.
But there is no internal machinery for
blocking, and not being Immediately util-
lied, the material is lost forever-Or, at
least until it returns in some more eli
gible form.
Still further: 1t is estimated that the
bones in every adult frame require to be
fed with lime enough TO make marble
mantel every eight months.
The mathematician of Puck has been at
work all of one afternoon on the above
suggestive facts, and he has found that
lDS StOLudCu VI every tramp COnIdluo III
three-score years and ten the following
awe-inspiring aggregate of articles in a
crude form:
Mems shoes, 20 years, a pair per
year Observation-Disclosures. 20 pairs.
Horses shoes, 10 years, a. pair per
month, as our arterial system
news Its blood every full moon. $40 shoes.
Bricks, (d12 every seven years. -. 120 bricks.
Hats, not less than IA year. ... $50 hats.
Matcaes counting bissextile orl leap
years) 3, 800 boxes.
Mantels, q 11z a year, for a well
man. ......... 105 mantels.
The casual reader, who has given little
study to the abstruse science of human
physiology, will be -astonished at the re-
suit. He will be surprised TO learn that
we cat as many shoes as We wear, upon
the authority of Yale professor; that We
digest hats enough to pay all the election
bets of an average village. even when the
pools are not Withdrawn that we float IN
our arteries horse-shoes enough TO keep
a spah Of grsys shod all the while; that a