Everywhere oxidation is going on, oxidation either of the blood itself
or of the structures which it bathes, and whose losses it has to make
good. Everywhere change is going on. Little by little, bit by bit, every
part of the body, here quickly, there slowly, is continually mouldering
away and as continually being made anew by the blood. Made anew
according to its own nature. Though it is the same blood which is
rushing through all the capillaries, it makes different things in
different parts. In the muscle it makes muscle; in the nerve, nerve; in
the bone, bone; in the glands, juice. Though it is the same blood, it
gives different qualities to different parts: out of it one gland makes
saliva, another gastric juice: out of it the bone gets strength, the
brain power to feel, the muscle power to contract.
When the biceps muscle contracts and raises the arm, it does work. The
power to do that work, the muscle got from the blood, and the blood from
the food. All the work of which we are capable comes, then, from our
food, from the oxidation of our food, just as the power of the
steam-engine comes from the oxidation of its fuel. But you know that in
the steam-engine only a very small part of the power, or energy, as it
is called, of the fuel goes to move the wheel. By far the greater part
is lost in heat. So it is with our bodies: all the force we can exert
with our bodies is but a small part of the power of our food; all the
rest goes to keep us warm.
Visiting all parts of the body, rebuilding and refreshing every spot it
touches, the blood current also carries away from each organ the waste
matters of which that organ has no longer any use. Just as each part or
organ has different properties and different work, so also is the waste
of each not exactly the same, though all are alike inasmuch as they are
all the results of oxidation. The waste of the muscle is not exactly the
same as the waste of the brain or of the liver. Possibly the waste
things which the blood bears from one organ may be useful to another,
and so be made to do double work, just as the tar which the gasworks
throw away makes the fortune of the colour manufacturer.
Be this as it may, the waste products of all parts, travelling hither
and thither in the body, come at last to be brought down to very simple
things, with all their virtue gone out of them, with all, or all but
all, their power of burning lost, fit for nothing but to be cast away,
come at last to be urea or ammonia, carbonic acid, and salts. In this
shape, the food, after a longer or shorter sojourn in the body, having
done its work, having built up this or that part, having helped the
muscle to contract or the liver to secrete, having by its burning given
rise to work or to heat, goes back powerless to the earth and air from
which it came. And so the tale is told.
HOW WE FEEL AND WILL. § X.
=56.= One other matter we have to note before we have given the full
answer to the question why we move.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account