THE LUNGS; THEIR MECHANISM AND WONDERS.

What the Lungs Are.– The lungs!dense looking objects, and yet how li buoyant! This beautiful anatomical chart shows us a front view of the chest and lungs, with the lungs enclosed within the bony basket — work of the chest. The lungs are two large, conical bodies, placed one on each side of the chest, and occupy the greater part of its cavity. During the life they accurately adapt themselves to the varying dimensions of the chest; for, unhappily, the foibles of fashion very frequently cause restriction of the lungs, by interfering with the resistance and freedom of movement of the ribs, so essential to health, by tight lacing and the bar Paris usage of corsets.

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This is a distinct historical reference as we go to the section on the lungs. Corsets aren’t in use very often today in 2007, and when they are used they used with materials that don’t actually bind up the chest typically. They’re definitely not in wide use and reading about this in a medical book almost reminds me of reading about foot binding in a history book about Chinese fashion. This is a Western medical book and so corsets are probably closer to this book than Chinese foot binding might be, however to me looking at the book almost 100 years later, the concept still seems very alien.

The first couple sentences of this section are also fairly peculiar for the writing styles, with the excessive use of the “!” And the joy and wonder at looking at something so beautiful as the lungs today seems a little insincere, however it may have had very pure sincere reasons when it was written a hundred years ago, the great war and in World War II and its successor along with many scandals have cause the world to grow up a bit and harden itself and I wonder if in part this almost innocent use of language seems slightly alien itself due to the distance of almost 100 years of innocence.