The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, January 1883: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific CircleChautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
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The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, January 1883: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
But there are certain distinct and different principles which the body
requires should be furnished to it, out of food. You stand there very
firmly on the ground, and you look jolly and substantial enough. I
should think from your appearance you have been in no way stinted in
the matter of supplies. I estimate, at a guess, that your substantial
body would weigh, some one hundred and fifty pounds, if placed in the
scales. Now what do you think the greater part of those one hundred and
fifty pounds is composed of. Bones? Not exactly, you are too soft for
that. Flesh? There seems plenty of flesh, but the flesh is not the most
abundant element. Brains? I am afraid they are less than the flesh. No.
You will wonder indeed when I tell you that three-quarters of that firm
and well-knit frame are nothing else but water. If I were to take your
body and dry it until all its water was gone, there would remain behind
nothing but thirty-seven pounds of dry mummy-substance, in the place
of the original one hundred and fifty pounds; one hundred and thirteen
pounds of water would have steamed away. You will see then that water
must be furnished in fair quantity, with or in the food. You have
heard, I do not doubt, many horrible and sad things which have happened
when people have been kept a long time without water. Thanks to the
bounty of Providence, this privation is, however, one that very rarely
occurs.
But now, supposing that we have steamed away the one hundred and
thirteen pounds of water, and that there are left behind thirty-seven
pounds of dry substance, what does that substance consist of? It still
contains several distinct things, which have had entirely distinct
offices to perform in the living frame.
First, you know, there is that flesh, which makes so comely a show.
Now, we shall be able to find out how much there really is of flesh.
Of dry flesh-substance, including a little skin and jelly, there
are seventeen pounds, and that is the working part of the frame.
It is by its means the ton-weight can be lifted one mile high in a
single day, and that all the moving and acting, of whatever kind, are
effected. Remember, then, that the acting part of the living body is
flesh-substance, and that of that flesh-substance there are not more
than seventeen pounds in a full-grown man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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