Notes on health : showing how to preserve or regain it, by diet, regimen, &c, with a familiar explanation of the chief functions of the human body, and their relation to the mind / by W.T. Coleman.

  • Coleman, W. T.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on health : showing how to preserve or regain it, by diet, regimen, &c, with a familiar explanation of the chief functions of the human body, and their relation to the mind / by W.T. Coleman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    114/200 (page 98)
    This structure is elastic and contractile, but has no proper motion of its own. On the other hand, the walls of the chest are a framework of bones and cartilages—in many pieces—as the ribs, breast-bone, &c, and to these are attached powerful muscles, so that we can raise them at will to a great extent (although usually without any act of the attention, this muscular action being carried on even during sleep). While the ribs, then, are raised and expanded by this action, another muscle, the diaphragm or midriff, situated transversely between the chest and the bowels (forming a barrier between them), by its con- traction pushes down the bowels, and so lengthens the cavity of the chest from above downwards. By these two motions combined, the pressure of the air on the inside of the chest and lungs which line it, becomes less in com- parison with that on the outside for a moment, and the elastic air rushes in to equalize the pressure. This is the inspiration; and then, when the muscular action which has caused this movement is for a moment relaxed, the elasticity of the chest itself, and that of the lungs which had been overcome, prevails again, and the lungs con- tracting, the air is again expelled. This is expiration. The full effect of this process, then, we see, cannot be attained, if by any means the free motion, both of the chest itself, and of the abdominal walls below the chest, be impeded. What, then, must the evil results be of such modes of dress as impede either one of these actions ?—and but too often, by the pressure of stays and other evil contrivances, both actions are impeded at the same time. The chest can neither expand at the sides nor yet from above downwards (or vertically), and it is probable that the act of respiration is only half performed.