Hygienic Physiology With Special Reference To The Use Of Alcoho

Chapter 8

Chapter 83,768 wordsPublic domain

5. _Consumption_ is a disease which destroys the substance of the lungs. Like other lung difficulties, it is caused largely by a want of pure air, a liberal supply of which is the best treatment that can be prescribed for it. [Footnote: If I were seriously ill of consumption, I would live outdoors day and night, except in rainy weather or midwinter; then I would sleep in an unplastered log house. Physic has no nutriment, gaspings for air can not cure you, monkey capers in a gymnasium can not cure you, stimulants can not cure you. What consumptives want is pure air, not physic, plenty of meat and plenty of bread.--DR. MARSHALL HALL.]

6. _Asphyxia_ (as-fix'-i-a).--When a person is drowned, strangled, or choked in any way, what is called asphyxia occurs. The face turns black; the veins become turgid; insensibility and often convulsions ensue. If relief is not secured within a few minutes, death will be inevitable. [Footnote: The lack of oxygen, and the presence of carbonic-acid gas, are the combined causes. Oxygen starvation and carbonic-acid poisoning, each fatal in itself, work together to destroy life.] (See p. 264.)

7. _Diphtheria_ (_diphthera_, a membrane) is characterized by fever, debility, and a peculiar sore throat, in which exuding fibrinous matter forms a grayish white membrane, which afterward decomposes with a fetid odor. Its sudden and insidious approach, contagious character, and frequent fatality, render it an exceedingly dreaded disease. A diphtheritic patient should be quarantined, and everything connected with the sick room thoroughly disinfected.

8. _Croup_, which often attacks young children, is an inflammation of the mucous membrane of the larynx and trachea. It is commonly preceded by a cold. The child sneezes, coughs, and is hoarse, but the attack frequently comes on suddenly, and usually in the night. It is accompanied by a peculiar "brassy," ringing cough, which, once heard, can never be mistaken. It may prove fatal within a few hours. (See p. 260.)

9. _Stammering_ depends, not on defects of the muscles, but on a want of due control of the mind. When a stammerer is not too conscious of his lack, and tries to form his words slowly, he speaks plainly, and may sing well, for then his words must follow one another in rhythmic time. Many persons who stammer in common conversation can talk with fluency when making a speech. The stammerer should seek to discover the cause of his difficulty, and to overcome it by vocal and respiratory exercise, especially by speaking only after a full inspiration, and during a long, slow expiration.

PRACTICAL QUESTIONS.

1. What is the philosophy of "the change of voice" in a boy?

2. Why can we see our breath on a frosty morning?

3. When a law of health and a law of fashion conflict, which should we obey?

4. If we use a "bunk" bed, should we pack away the clothes when we first rise in the morning?

5. Why should a clothespress be well ventilated?

6. Should the weight of our clothing hang from the waist, or the shoulder?

7. Describe the effects of living in an overheated room.

8. What habits impair the power of the lungs?

9. For full, easy breathing in singing, should we use the diaphragm and lower ribs, or the upper ribs alone?

10. Why is it better to breathe through the nose than the mouth?

11. Why should not a speaker talk while returning home on a cold night after a lecture?

12. What part of the body needs the loosest clothing?

13. What part needs the warmest?

14. Why is a "spare bed" generally unhealthful?

15. Is there any good in sighing?

16. Should a hat be thoroughly ventilated? How?

17. Why do the lungs of people who live in cities become of a gray color?

18. How would you convince a person that a bedroom should be aired? [Footnote: "If the condensed breath collected on the cool windowpanes of a room where a number of persons have been assembled, be burned, a smell as of singed hair will show the presence of organic matter; and if the condensed breath be allowed to remain on the windows for a few days, it will be found, on examination by the microscope, that it is alive with animalculæ."]

19. What persons are most liable to catarrhs, consumption, etc.?

20. If a person is plunged under water, will it enter his lungs?

21. Are bed curtains healthful?

22. Why do some people take "short breaths" after a meal?

23 What is the special value of public parks?

24. Can a person become used to bad air, so that it will not injure him?

25. Why do we gape when we are sleepy?

26. Is a fashionable waist a model of art in sculpture or painting?

27. Should a fireplace be closed? [Footnote: Thousands of lives would be saved if all fireplaces were kept open. If you are so fortunate as to have a fireplace in your room, paint it when not in use, put a bouquet of fresh flowers in it every morning, if you please, or do anything to make it attractive, but never _close it_; better use the fireboards for kindling wood. It would be scarcely more absurd to take a piece of elegantly-tinted court-plaster and stop up the nose, trusting to the accidental opening and shutting of the mouth for fresh air, because you thought it spoiled the looks of your face to have two such great, ugly holes in it, than to stop your fireplace with elegantly-tinted paper, or a Japanese fan, because it looks better.--Leeds.]

28. Why does embarrassment or fright cause a stammerer to stutter still more painfully?

29. In the organs of voice, what parts have somewhat the same effect as the case of a violin and the sounding-board of a piano?

30. Why should we be careful not to "take the breath of a sick person"?

31. What special care should be taken with regard to keeping a cellar clean?

32. How is the air strained as it passes into the lungs?

33. Can one really "draw the air into his lungs"?

34. How often do we breathe?

35. Describe some approved method of ventilation.

36. What is at once the floor of the chest and the roof of the abdomen?

37. What would you do in a case of apparent death by drowning, or by coal gas? (See p. 264.)

38. What would you do in a case of croup, while the doctor was coming? (See p. 260.)

39. How would you treat a severe burn? (See p. 257.)

40. Describe the various ways in which the water in a well is liable to become unwholesome.

FIG. 34.

THE CIRCULATION.

"No rest this throbbing slave may ask, Forever quivering o'er his task, While far and wide a crimson jet Leaps forth to fill the woven net, Which in unnumber'd crossing tides The flood of burning life divides, Then, kindling each decaying part, Creeps back to find the throbbing heart."

HOLMES.

ANALYSIS OF THE CIRCULATION

THE CIRCULATION.

THE ORGANS OF THE CIRCULATION are the _heart_, the _arteries_, the _veins_, and the _capillaries_.

FIG. 35.

THE BLOOD is the liquid by means of which the circulation is effected. It permeates every part of the body, except the cuticle, nails, hair, etc. The average quantity in each person is about eighteen pounds. [Footnote: It is difficult to estimate the exact amount, and therefore authorities disagree. Foster places it at about one thirteenth of the body weight.] It is composed of a thin, colorless liquid, the _plasma_, filled with red disks or cells, [Footnote: There is also one white globular cell to every three or four hundred red ones. The blood is no more red than the water of a stream would be if you were to fill it with little red fishes. Suppose the fishes to be very, very small--as small as a grain of sand-- and closely crowded together through the whole depth of the stream; the water would look quite red, would it not? And this is the way in which, blood looks red--only observe one thing; a grain of sand is a mountain in comparison with the little red fishes in the blood. If I were to tell you they measured about 1/3500 of an inch in diameter, you would not be much wiser; so I prefer saying (by way of giving you a more perfect idea of their minuteness) that there would be about a million in such a drop of blood as would hang on the point of a needle. I say so on the authority of a scientific microscopist--M. Bouillet. Not that he has ever counted them, as you may suppose, any more than I have done; but this is as near an approach as can be made by calculation to the size of 1/3500 part of an inch in diameter.--JEAN MACE.] so small that about three thousand five hundred placed side by side would measure only an inch, and it would take sixteen thousand laid flatwise upon one another to make a column of that height. Under the microscope, they are found to be rounded at the edge and concave on both sides. [Footnote: By pricking the end of the finger with a needle, we can obtain a drop for examination. Place it on the slide, cover with a glass, and put it at once under the microscope. The red disks will be seen to group themselves in rows, while the white disks will seem to draw apart, and to be constantly changing their form. After a gradual evaporation, the crystals (Fig. 36) may be seen. In animals, they have various, though distinctive forms.] They have a tendency to collect in piles like rolls of coin. The size and shape vary in the blood of different animals. [Footnote: Authorities differ greatly in their estimate of the size of the disks (corpuscles) in human blood. The fact is that the size varies in different persons, probably also in the same individual. Many of the best microscopists therefore hesitate to state whether a particular specimen of blood belonged to a human being or to an animal. Others claim that they can distinguish with accuracy. Evidently, the question is one of great uncertainty. The following statement of the size of the cells in different animals is taken from Gulliver's tables: Cat, 1/4404 of an inch in diameter; whale, 1/3100; mouse, 1/3614; hog, 1/4230; camel, 1/3123; sheep, 1/3352; horse, 1/4800; Virginia deer, 1/5038; dog- faced baboon, 1/4861; brown baboon, 1/3493; red monkey, 1/3396; black monkey, 1/3530.] Disks are continually forming in the blood, and are constantly dying--twenty million at every breath.--DRAPER.

The plasma also contains fibrin, [Footnote: it is usual to say that fibrin is contained in the blood. It probably does not exist as such, but there are present in the blood certain substances known as _paraglobulin_ and _fibrinogen_, which by the action of a third substance, _fibrin ferment_ under certain circumstances, form fibrin and so cause coagulation. The exact nature of the process by which fibrin is produced by these three factors is not understood--See Foster's _Text Book of Physiology_, p 22.] albumin--which is found nearly pure in the white of an egg--and various mineral substances, as iron, [Footnote: Enough iron has been found in the ashes of a burned body to form a mourning ring.] lime, magnesia, phosphorus, potash, etc.

FIG. 36.

USES OF THE BLOOD.--The blood has been called "liquid flesh"; but it is more than that, since it contains the materials for making every organ. The plasma is rich in mineral matter for the bones, and in albumen for the muscles. The red disks are the air cells of the blood. They contain the oxygen so essential to every operation of life. Wherever there is work to be done or repairs to be made, there the oxygen is needed. It stimulates to action, and tears down all that is worn out. In this process, it combines with and actually burns out parts of the muscles and other tissues, as wood is burned in the stove. [Footnote: For the sake of simplicity, perhaps to conceal our own ignorance, we call this process "burning." The simile of a fire is good so far as it goes. But as to the real nature of the change which the physiologist briefly terms "oxidation," we know nothing. This much only can be asserted positively. A stream of oxygen is carried by the blood to the muscles (in fact to every tissue in the body), while, from the muscles the blood carries away a stream of carbonic acid and water. But what takes place in the muscles, when and what chemical change occurs, no one can tell. We see the first and the last stage. We know that contraction of the muscles somehow comes about, oxygen disappears, carbonic acid appears, energy is released, and force is exhibited as motion, heat, and electricity. But the intermediate step is hidden.

There are certain theories advanced, however, that are worth considering. Some physiologists hold that the muscle has the power of taking up the oxygen from the _hemoglobin_ (a body that comprises ninety per cent of the red corpuscles when dried, and is the oxygen carrier of the blood), and fixing it, as well as the raw material (food) furnished by the blood, thus forming a true contractile substance. The breaking down or decomposition of this contractile substance in the muscle, sets free its potential energy. The process is gentle so long as the muscle is at rest, but becomes excessive and violent when contraction occurs. (See "Foster's Physiology," p. 118.) It is also believed by some that the chemical change in the muscle partakes of a fermentive character; that, under the influence of the proper ferments, the substances break up into other and simpler products, thus setting free heat and force; and that this chemical change is followed by a secondary oxidation by the oxygen in the arterial blood, thereby forming carbonic acid and water, as in all putrefactive processes. But these and other views are not as yet fully understood; while they utterly fail to tell us how a collection of simple cells, filled merely with a semifluid mass of matter, can contract and set free muscular power. The commonness of this act hides from us its wonderful nature. But here, hidden in the cell--Nature's tiny laboratory--lies the mystery of life. Before its closed door we ponder in vain, confessing the unskillfulness of our labor, and fearing all the while lest the _Secret of the Cell_ will always elude our search.] The blood, now foul with the burned matter, the refuse of this fire, is caught up by the circulation, and whirled back to the lungs, where it is purified, and again sent bounding on its way.

There are then two different kinds of the blood in the body: the red or arterial, and the dark or venous.

TRANSFUSION.--As the blood is really the "vital fluid" it would seem that feeble persons might be restored to vigor by infusing healthy blood into their veins. This hypothesis, so valuable in its possible results in prolonging human life, has been carefully tested. Animals which have ceased to breathe have thus had their vitality recalled. In the seventeenth century the theory became a subject of special investigation. A maniac was restored to reason by the blood of a calf, and the most extravagant hopes were entertained. But many fatal accidents occurring, experiments upon human beings were forbidden by law, and transfusion soon fell into disuse. It has, however, been successfully practiced in several cases within the last few years, and is a method still in repute for saving lives.

COAGULATION.--When blood is exposed to the air, it coagulates. This is caused by the solidifying of the fibrin, which entangling the disks, forms the "clot." The remaining clear, yellow liquid is the _serum_. The value of this peculiar property of the blood can hardly be overestimated. The coagulation soon checks all ordinary cases of bleeding. [Footnote: In the case of the lower animals, which have no means of stopping hemorrhages as we have, the coagulation is generally still more rapid. In some species of birds it takes place almost instantaneously.] When a wound is made, and bleeding commences, the fibrin forms a temporary plug, as it were, which is absorbed when the healing process is finished. Thus we see how a Divine foresight has provided not only for the ordinary wants of the body, but also for the accidents to which it is liable. [Footnote: The fibrin is not an essential ingredient of the blood. All the functions of life are regularly performed in people whose blood lacks fibrin; and, in cases of transfusion, where blood deprived of its fibrin was used, the vivifying influence seemed to be the same. Its office, therefore, must mainly be to stanch any hemorrhage which may occur.--FLINT.]

FIG. 37.

THE HEART is the engine which propels the blood. It is a hollow, pear- shaped muscle, about the size of the fist. It hangs, point downward, just to the left of the center of the chest. (See Fig. 31.) It is inclosed in a loose sac of serous membrane, [Footnote: The mucous membrane lines the open cavities of the body; the serous, the closed. The pericardium is a sac composed of two layers--a fibrous membrane on the outside, and a serous one on the inside. The latter covers the external surface of the heart, and is reflected back upon itself in order to form, like all the membranes of this nature, a sac without an opening. The heart is thus covered by the pericardial sac, but not contained inside its cavity. A correct idea may be formed of the disposition of the pericardium around the heart by recalling a very common and very convenient, though now discarded headdress, the cotton nightcap. The pericardium incloses the heart exactly as this cap covered the heads of our forefathers.-- _Wonders of the Human Body_.] called the pericardium (_peri_, about; and _kardia_, the heart). This secretes a lubricating fluid, and is smooth as satin.

THE MOVEMENTS OF THE HEART consist of an alternate contraction and expansion. The former is called the _sys'-to-le_, and the latter the _di-as'-to-le_. During the diastole, the blood flows into the heart, to be expelled by the systole. The alternation of these movements constitutes the beating of the heart which we hear so distinctly between the fifth and sixth ribs. [Footnote: Two sounds are heard if we put our ear over the heart,--the first and longer as the blood is leading the organ, the second as it falls into the pockets of the two arteries, and the valves then striking together cause it. The first sound is mainly the noise made by the muscular tissue. During the first, the two ventricles contract; during the second the two auricles do so. The hand may feel the heart striking the ribs as it contracts,--a feeling called the impulse, or, if quicker and stronger than usual, palpitation. This is not always a sign of disease, but in hypochondriacs is often an effect of the mind on the nerves of the heart.--MAPOTHER]

FIG. 38.

THE AURICLES AND VENTRICLES--The heart is divided into four chambers. In an adult, each holds about a wineglassful. The upper ones, from appendages on the outside resembling the ears of a dog, are called _auricles (aures_, ears). are termed _ventricles_. The auricle and ventricle on each side communicate with each other, but the right and left halves of the heart are entirely distinct, and perform different offices. The left side propels the red blood; and the right, the dark. The auricles are merely reservoirs to receive the blood (the left auricle, as it filters in bright and pure from the lungs; the right, as it returns dark and foul from the tour of the body), and to furnish it to the ventricles as they need. Their work being so light, their walls are comparatively thin and weak. On the other hand, the ventricles force the blood (the left, to all parts of the body; the right, to the lungs), and are, therefore, made very strong. As the left ventricle drives the blood so much farther than the right, it is correspondingly thicker and stronger.

NEED OF VALVES IN THE HEART.--As the auricles do not need to contract with much force simply to empty their contents into the ventricles below them, there is no demand for any special contrivance to prevent the blood from setting back the wrong way. Indeed, it would naturally run down into the ventricle, which is at that moment open to receive it. But, when the strong ventricles contract, especially the left one, which must drive the blood to the extremities, some arrangement is necessary to prevent it from returning into the auricle. Besides, when they expand, the "suction power" would tend to draw back again from the arteries all the blood just forced out. This difficulty is obviated by means of little doors, or valves, which will not let it go the wrong way. [Footnote: The heart of an ox or a sheep may be used to show the chambers and valves. The aorta should be cut as far as possible from the heart, and then by pumping in water the perfection of these valves will be finely exhibited. Cutting the heart across near the middle will show the greater thickness of the left ventricle.]