Ourselves, our food, and our physic / [Benjamin Ridge].

  • Ridge, Benjamin
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ourselves, our food, and our physic / [Benjamin Ridge]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tration. Dancers, acrobats, wrestlers, and those who indulge in gymnastics, and every one in fact, who takes riding, walking, and other exercise, must appreciate its wonderful flexibility and endurance, and how exhaustless must be the inorganic fluid elements to keep up flexibility and prevent friction. The Cavity of the Chest.—This is formed by the ribs and the back and breast bones ; the upper parts being pro¬ tected by the collar bones, and the lower floor supported by a muscular partition called the diaphragm or midriff, which is attached to the breast bone and the lower ribs and vertebrae of the back, and separates this cavity from the abdomen. In the chest this midriff is arched, and in the abdomen it is dome-shaped, it moves upwards and downwards according to the inspiration of air into or expiration of air out of the lungs ; thus mechanically assisting the act of breathing. The cavity of the chest contains— The Heart, Lungs, Windpipe, Gullet, etc.—The heart is in the middle suspended in a muscular bag, which is always partially filled with an inorganic fluid, so that in whatever position the body may be, the heart is always in a water bed. This gives it great freedom of action, which it should have as the great centre of the circulation of the blood. The lungs are on each side. The wdndpipe comes down at the back of the heart and divides into two portions, one going into each lung. It is called the windpipe until it is thus divided, then each portion becomes the commence¬ ment of the bronchial or breathing tubes, whose name is legion, penetrating every part of the lungs. At the back of the windpipe and to which it is attached, is the gullet on its way through the diaphragm to the stomach. The wind¬ pipe is composed of cartilaginous rings, in order to keep the tube open for the free ingress and egress of air, while the gullet is a muscular bag protected and held up by the windpipe. As it would be impossible to fill a sack without its being held open, so the windpipe holds the swallowing sack or gullet, which dilates wdth everything passing down it and contracts above when food has passed into the stomach There are other anatomical contents of this cavity, but not necessary to be named here. The Cavity of the Abdomen contains the stomach,