The value of good food : no. 3 of deposits in the Savings' Bank of Wisdom, made in behalf of working men and women.

Date:
[between 1850 and 1859?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The value of good food : no. 3 of deposits in the Savings' Bank of Wisdom, made in behalf of working men and women. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    DIGESTION. n thrust without wounding a supply-pipe. WTien the heart pumps, red blood thus flusJies through every portion of the living frame, repairing and warming it, and supporting it in its offices. But you will say I have not yet proved my case. Pood is washed out of the heart to all parts of the body. This heart, however, is already in the body. There is therefore no washing of the food into the tody here. It is already in, when it is pumped from the heart; but where does the heart get the blood from, which it pumps onwards ? Sow can it be shown that the blood comes out of food ? This is to be my next step. I am going on to explain to you that the heart gets its blood from the food which is eaten; that the blood indeed is finely divided food given up to the conveying power of water; food finally prepared for its task of nourishing the living frame. How then is the food thus prepared ? how is solid food turned into liquid and easily flowing blood? Food is turned into blood by being digested. Men have digesting bags, more commonly known under the designation of stomachs, inside of them, into which portions of digestible substances are placed from time to time. These inside digesting bags are particularly convenient, because when a fair quantity of food is once packed away there, men may move about in pursuit of their business without having to give any further heed to the digesting work that is going on in their behoof. Before, however, food is passed down into the digest- ing bag, it is first ground in a powerful mill, and mixed up with liquid into a sort of paste. The mill has many pairs of very hard stones set in rows over against each other. It is called the mouthy and the stones are terihed teeth. The liquid which makes the ground food into paste, is poured out from little taps laid on in the mill or mouth, and is called the saliva.