The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1881-12-10
Marvels of the Human Body.

While the gastric juice has mild, bland,
sweetish taste, it possesses the power of
dissolving the hardest food that can be
swallowed 1t has no influence whatever
on the soft and delicate fibres of the living
stomach nor upon the living hand, but at
the 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 val
ley and on the mountain top; there is dust
always and everywhere; the atmosphere is
full of it; it penetrates the noisome dun
geon, 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 eye-lid there is
necessarily emptying itself fountain of
the blandest fluid in nature, which spreads
itself over the surface of the eye at every
winking and washes every atom away But
this liquid, so mild and so well adapted to
the eye, itself has some acridity, which, un-
der certain circumstances becomes so deci-
ded as to be scalding to the skin, and would
rot away the eye-lids, were it not that along
the edges of them are little oil manufacto-
ries, which spread over their surface coat
ing as impervious to the liquids necessary
for keeping the eye-lids clean as the best
varnish is imperviOus to water
The breath which leaves the lungs has
been so perfectly divested of its life-giving
properties, that to rebreath it unmixed
with other air the moment it escapes from
the mouth, whould cause immediate death
by suffocation; while if it hovered about
us, more or less destructive influence over
health and life would be occasioned. But
it is made of nature so much lighter than
the common air, that the instant it escapes
the lips and nostrils it ascends to the high
er regions above the breathing point, there
to be rectifed, renovated and sent back
again, replete with purity and life.
How rapidly it ascends is fully exhibited
every frosty morning.
But, foul and deadly as the expired air
is, Nature, wisely economical in all her
works and ways, turns it to good account
its outward passage through the organs of
the voice, making of it the whispers 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. ...e
If well-made man be extended on the
ground, his arms at right angles with the
body, circle making the navel its centre
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 of the foot, while the dis
tance from the edge of the hair on the
forehead to the edge of the chin is one
tenth the length of the whole stature
OF the sixty-two primary elements known
in nature, only eighteen are known in the
human body, and of these seven are metal
lie. Iron is found in the blood, phosphor-
Gus in the brain, limestone 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 uni
verse is made, have their essential basis in
the four substances of oxygen, hydrogen,
nitrogen and carbon, representing the more
familiar names of fire, water saltpetre and
charcoal And such is man, the lord OF
earth Ia spark of fire, drop of water, a
grain of powder, and an atom of char
coal.-Populdr Monthly.