The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1879-06-11
MISCELLANY.
For THE RECORD
THE WONDERFUL STRUCTURE AND
FUNCTIONS 0FTHE HUMAN
NO. III.

Thus, we learn that the heart, with its four
apartments, four sets of valves, is a very COM
pick machine. Yet commonly it works well
and easily One part does not interfere with
another, asall the parts do not work at the
same time. There is an interval for each part
to act. In this way the whole machine works
harmoniously, -pumping the vital fluid night
and day, without any iDtermission, as long as
| life lasts. When this machinery stops, life is
extinct for it is, indeed, dependent upon the
action of this machine, mainly. As the heart
dilates aud contracts it's four cavities it pro-
duces two sounds. These you can hear very
distinctly il you put your ear to any ones
chest on the left side, in front of what is com
monty called the short ribs You hear a
heavy and full sound followed by quicker
and lighter one. These sounds are made by
the closing of the valves. AS the heart fore
es the blood directly into the arteries, they
pulsate, or dilate and contract with the heart
But the veins, whose office it is to return the
blood from the eaplaries to the heart, do not
pulsate. The arteries are made somewhat
stronger than the veins, in order to resist the
great force of blood that the heart is CONSTANT
~ pumping into them. If they We're not,
they would often burst, as we often see the
hose of fire engine do. They are also laid
very deep, and we'll protected for it would
be dangerous to have them SO near the sur
face of the body as some of the veins are, for
if an artery is severed it bleeds much more
than vein of the same size, and the bleed
! Ing is not easily checked. Thus the large artery
of the arm, when 1t comes to the joint at the
elbos does not pass over the boaes, where it
would be liable to get injured, but it lies deep
on the inside of the elbow, under the strong
tendon that you feel there. So at the knee,
the artery is deep at the back Of the joint, in
space between two jutting parapets of bone,
as we may call them. There are only few
places in the body where arteries of any size
are very near the surface. In such cases it is
because they could not possibly be laid in any
better way. One of these is the wrist coul-
monty known as the pulse. Another is at the
temples. In a sound adult body, the heart
and arteries pulsate from seventy to seventy
five times in a minute. The arterial system
is very great. The velocity is greatest in the
immediate neighborhood of the heart and di-
mInishes somewhat as the blood recedes from
the centre Of the circulation. By observation
and experiments it has been found that the
average velocity Of the blood is about twelve
inches per second in the arteries. In the Ca
pillaries its movement is much slower, but
perfectly steady. The blood passes along in
very uniform and continuous current with
out any apparent contraction or dilation of
the vessels, very much as though it we're flow
ing through glass tubes. 1t is while the blood
is In the capillaries that its nutriment is ex-
tracted and distributed to supply the wastes
of the body. The entire quantity Of blood
existing in the body has never been very &C.
curately ascertained. The minimum quanti-
ty existing in the human body, according to
experiments, has been found 10 be, on an av-
erage about one eighth of the entire weight
of the body. Thus the body of healthy
person, weighing one hundred and fifty 1.-TWO
pounds, will contain at least nineteen pounds
of blood.
The blood, after having passed through
this kind Of hydraulic machine, (the circula.
tory apparatrs), it is not in a fit state to be
used again until it is changed, or relieved of
its impurities by air. There is sort of pneu-
matte machine to perform this work in the
chest, adjacent to the circulatory machinery,
called respiration. The principal parts Of this
apparatus are, trachea (windpipe), larynx
upper part of windpipel, and the lungs
The trachea is cylindrical pipe four or five
inches long, and three fourths Of an inch il
diameter. This opens above into the larynx
! through which the air passes in the act of re
SEPARATION, and terminates below into tw,
branches called bronchial. These branches
join with the lungs, and terminate into mi
mute aifcells, The larynx Is that firm bod,
that we feel in front Of the upper part of TIN
throat, commonly called +" Adams applet
I This is the little organ, upon which the ac
ton of the breath produces our voice. 1t ha