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.

_____________________ This is a distinct historical reference as we go to the section on the lungs.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.

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• Difficulty of Obviating Lead Poisoning
  
  

  Difficulty of Obviating Lead Poisoning. — attempts have been made to obviate the danger of water contamination from lead pipes in various ways, but not as yet with complete success. In some instances the pipes have been lined with other metals, such as tin or zinc; but, at least in some instances, a galvanic action has thus been set up, which corroded the conduits with great rapidity, and probably lead, therefore, still more dangerous pollution of the water supply. Coating the pipes on the inside with coal tar, bituminous varnish, solution of gutta-percha and the India rubber, have also been experimented with, as yet with but partial success.

  Well those prescriptions sound about as useful as most prescriptions for acne treatments today.  Again, I would remind everyone that the quote above is from a 100 year old medical book and the preventative steps offered really only offer historical perspective. 

• The Olfactory Nerve & The Tongue
  
  

  This week I have uploaded a number of the pictures I’ve been promising for a couple weeks scanned. I will provide an administrative update about that soon after I do it, and I will go back and update hyperlinks in past articles directing to those images readers that find the articles and some date after they’ve been published. For anyone following along in the feed of this website the ordering of articles may get a little jumbled for a day or two as I perform those updates. I apologize for that in advance.  Here is the link for the often reference set of pictures from Chart 1.

  With this article I’m going to move into the next two sections that cover the olfactory nerve and the tongue.

  The Olfactory Nerve – the olfactory nerve is graphically displayed, branches of which are seen passing in all directions over the mucous membrane of the nose. A little to the left of the olfactory nerve is seeing the posterior nares, and immediately below the pharynx and epiglottis, the aesophagus or gullit, the larynx and trachea or wind-pipe.

  The Tongue – the tongue, or organ of taste and instrument of speech, is most accurately represented, the muscular fibers of which are seen running in different but determinant ways, is giving to this important organ variety and regularity of motion and 18 it to assume numerous shapes and forms. The cervical portion of the spinal column is seeing, with the fleshy part of the back of the neck attached. This plate is one that commends itself to our deep in careful study.

  There is not too much that leaps out from this particular section as the text is basically describing a picture. I didn’t spell a suspect is in the way that the book spells the word with an ‘a’ proceeding the ‘e’ of esophagus. There is something about old writing which I have not learned yet that sometimes puts an ‘a’ before and ‘e’. I’ve seen this in words such as, Aegypt v. Egypt and many others. One of these days I will look up the history of the word possibly it’s a Latin derivative of some type or another, I’m not certain today.

• The Shin Bone
  
  

  The Shin Bone. -The Tibia or shinbone is also a very large, strong, triangular-shaped bone, enlarged at both ends; the lower end, however where it articulates and forms a hinge joint with the foot, is larger and more prominent than the upper end. And as if this bone was not sufficiently strong enough in itself to bear the weight of the body, our Creator, that boundless wisdom and forethought everywhere in the human frame you see revealed, strengthens the legs by an additional bone, which is seen running on the outer side of the shinbone, to which it is firmly found at both ends.

  That is the Shin Bone and I must say that I will be happy when we get out of the glossary of body parts.  We are approaching diseases and their transmission next which should be a more interesting topic and less likely to make a person want to update cover letters from 10 years ago in their spare time.