The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1905-01-19
WHAT MEN ARE MADE OF.
THE BODY All ANIMATED SUGAR
AND STARCH FACTORY.

A Well Known Chemist Says We Are
Mostly Composed of White of Egg
Human System Carries on Num-
Der of Useful and Complicated Pro-
cesses.
you will probably be surprised"
said we'll known professor of chem
istry, when 1 tell you that the most
beautiful woman or the most intellect
ual man that ever lived is really noth-
ing more than animated white Of egg;
and yet it is perfectly true that, If
you only knew now to do it, you could
take a few hundred of eggs-you
would want we'll over thousand, by
the way-and manufacture a second
Shakespeare or a Helen of Troy
from them.
Unfortunately or fortunately,
rather-although the materials of
which man is composed are common
enough, the blending of them to form
a living being is far beyond any hui
man powers. But let up just run
through the constituents we are made
of see of what very ordinary ma
terials the best and cleverst of us
are composed.
"It we take a 12-stone man and
deprive him of gas and carbon. there
will be only pounds of HIM left,
while even the least oratorical man
that ever lived is five-sixths gas and
nothing else. Well may it be said
we are such stuff as dreams are made
Of for truly We are just as insub-
stantial.
I'm our 12-stone subject we shall
find no less than rs pounds of Oxy-
gen; he contains as much, in fact, Of
this vital gas as would fill a room
13 feet long, 10 feet wide, and sahde
over 10 feet high. If we proceed next
to deprive him of his hydrogen he
will only lose a little over 10 pounds
of his weight by the process, but the
gas We procure will fill room more
than twice the size of our oxygen res
ervoir; for it will be Is feet square
and as nearly as possible IL feet
high, and will have such buoyancy
that it could carry our patient up to
the clouds.
Another essential is nitrogen, of
which our 12-stone man has sixty-four
cubic feet slowed away in his body
sufficient to fill nice little box 4
feet long, wide. and high. We have
now deprived our man of three out
of his fourteen constituents, have lib
Grated gases sufficient to fill room,
roughly. 20 feet square and 10 feet
high-in which, by the way, you could
pack 500 good sized men-and have
reduced his weight by shade under
10 stone, or, to be more exact, by 139
pounds
There is not much left Of him to
account for, you see, now that the
three gases are enthusiastically 29
pounds, in fact, the weight of an in
fant-and of this a single other con-
stituent takes the lions share of "a
pounds. This constituent is carbon,
that curious element which takes
such widely diverse forms as COM
mon coal and the Kon-i-noor, and is
not to be despised in the lead pencil.
Just as coal keeps our houses warm
and gives motive power to the steam
engine, so it supplies energy and fuel
to the human body.
1--WE have now pounds of our man
to account for, and this is distributed
over nine most useful constituents.
Two and a quarter pounds, nearly half
of it, consist of calcium, which will
be more commonly recognized as
lime, and which plays very impor
tant part in the human mechanism;
and to this we must add / pound IL
ounces of phosphorus, from which, if
you like, you could make sufficient
to give one TO every man,
woman and child in Manchester. The
constituents of our man
only weigh l pound 1 ounce, and con-
sist of sodium, sulphur, fiuorine, chic
rine, magnesium, potassium, and sill
con; while in weigh. they range from
two or three grains to four and half
ounces.
Naturally these fourteen elements
form combinations in the body in or
der to discharge their duties prop
erly. Thus oxygen and hydrogen
combine to form in our subject 1915
pounds of water, which serves an
infinite number Of most necessary and
useful Offices. The chlorine and So
dunn unite to form salt, of which we
shall find about Z ounces; and the
sodium combines with carbon and oxy-
gen to form the washing soda which
has been called the scavenger of the
body, and which fills in its time by
playing a useful part in building up
our bones
THE body is indeed most wonder
full factory, carrying on a number of
useful and complicated processes at
the same time. Thus it makes really
first class soap by the hundredweight
for its own use, and glycerine, too, as
a by-product; it manufactures sugar
from starch, and it makes gum, pep
sin alcohol and other nroducts more