The Democratic advocate., 1878-02-09
The MarTels Of Man.

While the gastric juice has a mild.
bland, sweetish taste it possesses the power
OF dlssolving the hardest food that can be
swallowed. 1t has no influence whatever
on the soft and delicate fibres Of the I;v-
ing stomach, nor upon the living hand.
but at the same moment of death it 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 atmosphere is full of it; it penetrates
the noisome 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, yet that eye is not blinded because
under the eyelid there is incessantly emp.
tying itself fountain of the blandest fluid
IN Nature, which spreads itself over the
surface Of the eye at every winking and
washing every atom of dust away. But
this liquid, so mild and so well adapted to
the eye itself, has some acidity, which.
under certain circumstances, becomes so
decided as to be scalding to the skin, and
would rot away the eyelids were it not
that along the edges of them there are lit
tie oil manufactures, which spread over
their surface a coating as impervious to
the liquids necessary for keeping the eye
ball washed clean, as the best varnish is
! lmpervlous to water. The breath which
leaves the lungs has been so perfectly di
vested OF Its life-giving properties that 10
re-breathe it, unmixed with other air. the
moment ii escapes from the mouth, woul I
cause immediate death by suffocation. while
IT it lowered about us 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 common
air that the instant that it escapes the Inns
and nostrils it ascends to the higher re-
gions above the breathing point, there to
be rectIhed, renovated and sent back again.
replete with purity and life. How rapidly
1t aseends is beautifully exhibited every
frosty morning. But foul and deadly as
the expired air is, Nature, wisely eco1om-
ical in all her ways, turns it to good ac-
count in its outward passage through the
organs of the voice, making of it the whis-
pers of life, the soft words of affection. the
tender tones Of humane 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, circle making the navelits centre.
will just take in the head, the finger ends
and the feet. The distance from top to
toe is exactly the same as that between
the tips of the fingers when the arms are
extended. The length of the BODY is lust
SIX times that of the foot, while the dis
lance from the edge of the hair on the
forehead to the end of the chin is one
tenth the length of the whole figure. Of
the sixty-two primary elements known in
Nature, only eighteen are found in the
human body, and of these seven are me-
tallie. Iron is found in the blood, phos-
phorous in the brain, limestone in the bile,
lime in the bones, and 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 of oxygen, hy-
drogen, nitrogen and carbon, representing
the more familiar names of fire, water, salt
petre and charcoal. And such is man, the
lord of earth spark of FIRE, drop of
water, grain of gunpowder, an atom of
charcoal Halls Journal Of Health.