The book of health / by Sir Risdon Bennett [and others] ; edited by Malcolm Morris.

Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The book of health / by Sir Risdon Bennett [and others] ; edited by Malcolm Morris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/1110 (page 1)
    The Book of Health. INTRODUCTORY. By W. S. Savory, F.R.S., Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Life and Health—The Organic Functions—Digestion—Absorption—Circulation of the Blood— Action of the Heart—Pulmonary Circulation—Respiration—The Animal Functions—The Skeleton—Muscular and Nervous Systems—The Brain—Vital Sympathy—The Distinctive Features oe Life—Waste and Repair—Sleep—Dreaming and Somnambulism—Day-Dreams —Rhythmical Action—The Material Agents of Vital Action—Food and Air—The Relation of Physical Forces to Vital Action—Death—The Signs of Death—Health—Conditions Affecting Health—Man’s Place in Nature. No inquiry is so common everywhere as that which has reference to one’s health, and such salutation is natural, for good health is not only the prime condition for the use and enjoyment of present life, but it is also full of promise for the future. But although Life and Health are among our most familiar words, and in their ordinary meaning none are more widely understood, yet in their scientific sense no terms are more difficult to comprehend. Life constitutes the grand distinction between the organised kingdom, including all plants and animals on the one hand, and the inorganic or mineral kingdom on the other. Apart from life the several lines of demarcation in structure and compo- sition which have been from time to time laid down have been effaced as science in its progress has either swept away errors or revealed truths. It is true that the marks of difference are obvious enough in many cases, and in the majority, when collectively applied, are sufficient to solve any temporary difficulty that may occur; but most of them disappear, and the others are by no means conclusive, when applied to the simplest forms. Now the features under which Life appears are infinitely varied—various in form and in expression, varying extremely too, from absolute simplicity to the most elaborate complexity. Let us glance at the phenomena of Life in ourselves. How many and diverse are the actions or functions which minister to it! There is digestion—a process for reducing food to a state of solution ; absorption—a process for conveying it when so dissolved into the blood ; the circulation—by which, as blood, it is conveyed all over the body to nourish it; respiration—for introducing oxygen to combine with the elements of the food and tissues, and at the same time to carry off one of the chief and most poisonous of the products of that combustion, carbonic acid ; there are also the processes of secretion and excretion. There are extensive and intricate systems of organs for motion, the muscles ; another, in its higher relations,