The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1907-02-01
THE HUMAN MACHINE
MANS BODY AND ITS WONDERS OF
MECHANICAL DEVICES.

pl Ahe SACNSN
and Ingenious Devices Registered
In Natures Patent Office.
So fearfully and wonderfully is the
| human body made that scientists are
beginning to realize that many Of the
| inventions of the day are infringe
| ments on natures patent Office. 4
| good deal of trouble and worry in the
past could have been avoided had in
ventors made a careful study Of the
devices employed in making these hui
man bodies of ours the useful things
they are. The principles of the block
| and pulley or the tackle could have
been discovered ages before had the
files of natures patent office been ran
sacked for there are several complete
pulleys in the body, notably the one
which moves the eyeball inward to-
ward the nose.
Engineers made exhaustive tests and
experiments before they discovered
that a hollow shaft or rod of iron or
steel is about twice as strong as a
solid one. Yet nature had patented
this device in our bones since the birth
of Adam and Eve, and every impOr-
tant bone is practically constructed on
this principle. The ball and socket Of
the hip bones were the forerunners Of
the modern ball bearings, and it was
the first automatic oiling machine used
in the world. The value of air pres
sure and Il vacuum was unknown to
man until the last century, but every
one of lis carried the secret in the air
tight hip joint which nature had as
signed to lessen the muscular effort to
hold our legs upright in position.
Engineers have made wonderful
progress i'll developing compound sue
ton and circular pumps, but all of the
principles contained in them are found
in the heart, and this little pumping
machine is still without q rival in the
mechanical world.
The principles of the safety valve
for steam engines are not so new as
they seem. Our human bodies carry
with them the first automatic safety
valves ever designed. There are up
ward of 100000 of them. We call
them by the common name of sweat
glands. Each such little gland has a
safety valve which lets off heat from
the body when it gets beyond a safe
temperature. We cannot stand q rise
of more than to 10 degrees of tenn
perature and live. If therefore the
2,500,000 safety valves were closed for
twenty-four hours, death would super
vene.
Adams apple was the first storage
cistern ever built and it works with
automatic regularity through health
and sickness. 1t is a most important
organ of the body, although for CEN
turtles it was considered a superfluous
attachment 1t regulates the flow of
blood between the heart and the brain.
When it ceases to operate, somebody
dies of apopleXy or a rush of blood to
the brain. When the heart sends up
too much blood to the head, the Adams
apple steps in to check the flow and
store it up for future emergencies. If
the heart is temporarily weakened or
put out of good running order, the
blood stored in this cistern is given up
anu sent 10 Tic DEdlH. Inc pcI1eCI
working of this little device is appar-
ent when we consider how compare
lively few die of rush of blood to the
brain or from deficiency Of supply.
The eye has score of small inven-
lions worthy of recording, the ear
nearly as many more and the vital
organs an equal number. There Is the
70 citation of
any poisons enter our systems with
food and they are Immediately held up
at this quarantine station and destroy
ed by a secret process. 1t Is only
when poisons enter in large quantities
that the station cannot handle them.
But the stomach co-operates with the
liver and intercepts some Of the pol
sons. There are small machines there
which manufacture minute quantities
of hydrochoric acid from the salts
eaten. This acid is made in exact pro-
portion to the amount of food consum-
ed and suffices to destroy the microbes
which we swallow. But there Is even
a third quarantine station located in
the mouth. Millions Of microbes are
destroyed in the mouth daily by the
juices elaborated there for this very
purpose If it was not for these three
quarantine stations working continu-
ously night and day, we should be kill
ed off by microbes within an hour aft
err eating q meal.
In the ear there is a little device
which might have been the original Of
our modern compressed air inventions.
The delicate drum of the ear must have
an equal pressure from the outside and
inside to receive and transmit the
sound vibrations. To make this pos
sble the eustachian tube was devised.
Its function is to regulate the air pres
sure inside the ear. Let it fail to work,
and one becomes stone deaf.
In the bones of the head there are
many little channels followed out
which are called the semicircular ca
nails. These canals are filled with fluid
lymph. For centuries no one could I'M
derstand their meaning. Some ply
sicians considered them OF no use.
This tendency to beiittle organs in the
human body whose functions could not
be explained has characterized more
than one generation of sayants. Now
these peculiar semicircular canals are
known to be wonderful little devices to
assist us in keeping our balance. They
act Il good deal as the ballast does on
n ship, or, more properly speaking, like
the fluid in a spirit level. The brain
keeps an eye on this spirit level and Is
made conscious Of the body's relative
position. The fluid flows back and
forth in the canals, and when we get
it at n dangerous angle the brain
knows it-New York Tribune