The Lehi banner. [volume] (Lehi, Utah) 1891-1917, 1897-04-27
Queer Things About the Body

One OF the most valuable OF the in
yentions made for our comfort and safety
Is the perspirative grand. IL acts like
the safety valve of a boilcf, letting of
heat when we are becoming dangerously
warm. II our Temperatures rose seven
twenty -four hours 20 live. The value of
the sweat glands is therefore ohvioGs.
liz fact, without IL II football, on cricket,
or rowing match would he out of
question, and we could not safely walk
at speed of more than a.quarter OF a
mile an hour. Nature has taken good
care, however. that we should not run
short OF these useful organs, and has
given us no less than 100000 Of
them.
So inventive was nature when con-
structing our body that the difficulty is
to stop enumeratipg her clever ideas.
She saw that we would very soon grow
tired if we had to hold up two heavy
legs by means OF muscular effort, so she
had made the hlr joints alright, and
the pressure OF the air alone keeps the
leg in its place.
The liver is the most wonderful organ,
containing facilities Of several kinds.
But perhaps the most wonderful thing
in it is that part set aside to look out for
and arrest poisons.
All the food that You eat, except the
fat, has TO pass through the liver before
going to the heart and body generally;
and in the liver their appear to be
stationed something OF the nature of
customs officers, who examine every hit
of food and remove from it all substances
dangerous to the body. But they are
only capable OF dealing with small
quantities in ordinary food, and when
you are SO foolish as to eat poisonous
mushrooms or mussels, they are quite
overpowered.
Another protection from danger is
afforded you by the supply of small
quantity Of hydrochloric acid to the
stomach. There are little machines in
the stomachs specially designed for the
manufacture of this acid from the salt
you eat, and they are so regulated that
they produce a quantity equal to one
fifth Of one per cent OF the contents Of
the stomach. Experiment shows that
this is exactly the percentage required
to destroy the microbes that we swallow
in thousands in our food But for this
thoughtful provision ofNature we would
probably get new disease with every
meal.
Again, the heart and lungs are, OF
course, the very basis of our life, they
are in constant motion, and if allowed
to rub against the chest walls around
them they will either get infiamed or
. wear away by friction. Nature has
therefore surrounded them with double
sac, and between the outer and inner
layers OF it she has placed aquantity Of
lubricating fluid.
But the most remarkable OF all devices
is that for splicing broken bones. The
genius is at once dispatched from the
brain to the spot. He proceeds to sur
round the broken ends with ferrule OF
cartilage. This is large ard strong, and
takes quite month to complete. When
the two ends are held firmly and inn
movabIy ia place by the ferrule, this
mysterious surgeon begins to place a
layer OF bone between them and solder
them t. gether.
And when the layer is complete and
the bone securely welded he removes the
ferrule, or callus, just as the scaffold is
removed from finished building
Often bone docs not get broken foi
two or three generations, and yet this
power to form the callus, and knowledge
OF how to dol it, is never lost.-Fron
Answers.