Vitality of the Heart. -- its vitality is as amazing as its strength. While life exists this tireless order never stops. In disease, as long as a flutter of this wondrous organ exists, we know the spark of life is not altogether vanished, and new Hope is begotten that helped me be restored. Airing such long lives as we sometimes see, the heart has propelled no less than 500,000 tons of blood; and yet, during all this patient, unfaltering and unflinching labor, it is her. Self as the waste has occurred. Heart Rhythms. --the rhythm of its beats never fails until death breaks into the casket and seizes the ever thriving pendulum at the command of the great Master Workman, silencing the quivering muscles of the heart and compelling the wheels of like a standstill.___________ This closes out the introduction to the workings of the heart, and the author ends the section talking about heartbeats or heart rhythms, but in doing so doesn't talk about heart rhythms or heartbeats at all. Notice the capitalize reference to Master Workman. I'm sure would've been some sort of sacrilege not to capitalize those two words and so they are capitalized. But it's still a little bizarre. Next section were heading into the digestive system, which is probably just as mysterious to the author as the working of the heart!
Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:
- Composition of the Chest
Composition of the Chest– the chest is composed of bones, cartilages, and ligaments. Its natural form is that of a cone diminishing upward; and it affords lodgment of the heart, lungs and large blood vessels. Its walls are formed posteriorly by the seven dorsal bones of the spinal column, and the ribs as far as the angle, the sides by the body of the ribs, and front by the ribs, the costal cartilages and the breast bone.
This section is about as exciting as you’d expect from a medical textbook. It’s almost unique in the fact that it has no items comments or issues that don’t seem like they would appear in a medical textbook. Some of the descriptions seem rather basic, but even that’s a bit of a stretch to find something unique about this section.
- Why is it that Disease Spreads?
Why is it that disease spreads?-It has been found by scientists that certain definitive living bodies (germs) are the cause of certain diseases, such as tuberculosis, smallpox, typhoid fever, diphtheria, etc.; and other diseases must be caused by other undiscovered bodies, which will some day be known. These minute living bodies are active and give off poisonous material which destroys the tissues, organs, etc. of the body. When a person is ill, these germs are being continually thrown off in the waste materials of the body, in the spittle, bowel movements, sweat, saliva, urine, et cetera. If these products of disease are allowed to remain in a vessel, the carpets, floor, soil, etc., they dry and in the form of dust are blown about in here at the house, street or country road. If they come in contact with clothing or household furniture, they can be carried. Should a nurse or attendant upon a case be careless about disinfecting the hands are closing during or after the management of a contagious disease, he or she can become a common carrier by touching food, dishes, clothing, etc., used by other members of the family.
Water is a common carrier of disease, particularly typhoid fever, cholera, etc. Therefore to prevent the spread of disease every farmer, dairy man, occupant of a dwelling, factory, citizens of villages, cities and states, should see that they have a clean water supply free from germs and not contaminated by dirty water or refuse from a toilet, a pen, stable, etc.., which might contain germs carry from a patient or animal suffering from any of the contagious disease is. One case of typhoid fever along the edge of a mountain stream, carelessly managed, thus permitting bowel movements to be thrown into or washed into the stream by rain, pelting snow, etc., could cause an epidemic in every village which received its water supply from that stream or the reverence which it empty.
Milk can be a common carrier of disease, such as tuberculosis, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria, etc. Most states however, have protected the supply of milk by the enactment of laws covering the inspection of cattle, the erection of well lighted, clean and ventilated dairies, boiling and sterilization of all utensils used in its handling, even the wearing of sterile grounds by the milkers and attendants, cleansing of the cows utters before and after milking incurring and brushing the cattle and covering them with light blanket. Milk should be kept it even temperatures after being placed in sterile can prevent the formation of germs which will develop even in transit to the consumer in the country or by train or in the milk bottles prior to delivery. Railroads are compelled in some states, and should be in all states, to furnish refrigerator cans with highs and the dealers in the city should particularly during the warm weather, have a refrigerator or eyes in the delivery wagons to maintain an even temperature for all milk delivered.
There are some interesting concepts within the section some of these actually seem somewhat practical and you can get a sense of the evolution of thought and care that was starting to go into the maintenance of water supplies and especially the concept of moving milk producing milk and transmitting or delivering it logistically across long distances as people lived more in cities and away from the country away from the source of the actual cattle delivering the milk.
Its also somewhat surprising that as early as one hundred years ago they were concerned with milkers wearing sterile clothing. I have a mental image in my head of kids going out to milk the cow each morning for milk and parents that had little regard for the sterility of children’s clothes as long as they did not spoil their Sunday clothes.
- The Pyloric Gate and The Liver
The Pyloric Gate. — At the smaller end the muscular fibers contract and form a gateway — the pylorus, as it is called — which carefully guards the exit from the stomach, and allows no food to escape until properly prepared. The gastric blood vessels are seeing distributing themselves over the outer surface of the organ, thus ensuring its nutrition and repair.
The Liver. — The liver is the secreting organ by which the bile is formed. It is situated on the right side below the diaphragm, and is of a reddish-brown color. It is a regular in form, being convex on the upper surface, irregularly concave behind, very thin in front, and weighs about 4 pounds. It is, therefore, seen to be the largest organ or gland in the body. It is divided into two lobes, the right and the left, the former being by far the larger. I’m turning the flap over, we see how intricately is arranged internally.
________
It’s strange but there are only a few sections like this one where there are no bizarre items to report or identify. It’s kind of a nice change of pace when the medical textbook reverts back to being a medical textbook.
I’m sure some strange topic will come up to catch my attention soon and it’s not like topics today in real life don’t sometimes appear a little out of the ordinary. I recently covered a reference to something known as tranquility diapers, which I believe is some reference to the peace of mind that a person suffering from incontinence, or IBD might experience after they utilize this particular product and start to live a more normalized life again.
In many ways it’s all a matter of perspective, my perspective of this old textbook is skewed significantly from the perspective of the initial writers and editors. Like calculus problem I’m studying the derivative. In this case the derivative can be measured by the span of time and change in knowledge .