Volume 2

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    43/600 (page 31)
    or too cold; others receive messages from the many groups of workers or cells distributed throughout the building. It is the function of other members of the staff (the motor nerve cells of the brain) to receive orders from the commander and to transmit telegraphic messages to the machines which main- tain the citadel in the erect position, which move its different parts, propel it from place to place, capture its supplies, defend it from attack, which do its work, which express the feelings of the general, and by means of which he communicates with other citadels (the muscles of the trunk, limbs, expression, and organs of speech); other nerve cells—but these are subordinate officers, and situated at a lower level, corporals or sergeants we may term them—are less directly in communication with the general, and are constantly sending encouraging messages to the different groups of workers, stimulating them in theism work (these are the so-called trophic nerves); other subordinate officials regulate the supply of nourishment which is being sent to the individual workers and organs (these are the vaso-motor nerves); others again are constantly stimulating the important machines which propel the nourishment through the body (the heart), and which move its great aerating machine (the lungs). In such a citadel there must, of course, be arrangements for manufacturing and distributing rations to the garrison and workers, for supplying it with fresh air, for removing its waste products, for heating it, and for protecting it from external atmospheric conditions. The food-preparing apparatus,—At one part of the wall there is a stoke hole, communicating with a large chamber (the mouth, see fig. 4), into which the raw material necessary for the preparation of the food is shovelled at the command of the governor. In this cavity the raw material is chopped up and ground down (by the teeth), and mixed with the products of the first great digestive manufactory (the salivary gland). It is then passed through a long straight tube (the gullet) into another large cavity (the stomach), where it is thoroughly mixed with the product (juice) of another most important manufactory (the