Great Value and Beauty of the Plate.--We can understand much of this wonderful process. We have looked into the stomach, watched its peculiar actions and traced its various steps, from which the scientist is capable, in his laboratory of knives, mortars, baths, chemicals and filters, of imitating many of the operations of digestion; but just at the moment he thinks himself most successful, he is compelled to pause.  At the threshold of that "one step more," which Fontenelle required, "and he would surprise nature herself," he stops, and very wisely, without concealment of his designs, admires, then wonders, and finally worships with all the reverence of his soul.

 

After reading that diatribe, I have to honestly say I have no idea what the author is talking about.  The other seems beyond some strange sort of rant about science, scientists in the digestive system.  Unfortunately he's ranting on a bunch of nonsense almost sound like he's talking about Frankenstein's monster.  One things for sure I'm glad that I didn't take a class instructed by this writer.  If this book is that hard to understand from sheer gibberish, I can just imagine what'll lecture would be like.

I don't think this has so much to do with the difference in the decades of the century even.  This seems to be more of an issue of an author suffering from the ability to provide a clear thought and written format.  It's almost like listening to Charlie Brown's teacher lecture on real estate over the telephone in a Peanuts cartoon.

WAh wah wah wah , wu wah . . . .

 

This entry seems to reaffirm my belief that this author got paid by the word and not by the concept of thought.

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• THE CLITORIS, URETHRA, VAGINA AND HYMEN.
  
  

  These female organs show further at the perfection which anatomical plate printing has attained.

  Clitoris.—This small organ, it will be seen, is situated at the upper part of the Volvo, or outside parts of the female generative system, it is usually concealed by the lips of the pudenda. It performs a function during sexual intercourse similar to that performed by the penis of the male.

  Urethra.–This highly useful organ, common to both sexes, is, as will be seen by the plate, now, or medium, by means of which the urine is carried from the bladder to be voided. It is a delicately lined organ, furnished with retentive valves, and therefore susceptible to a variety of diseases.

  Vagina.–This word implies a chief, and is applied to the can out which leads from the uterus (womb) to the external organs of generation in the female sex. Commonly, it implies such external organs, or organ, as depicted in the plate.

  Hymen.–The mucous membrane, or virginal membrane, at the entrance of the female sexual organ, or vagina.

  In general the author skips through the section very rapidly in a no-nonsense business or away. There is no alliteration, and no religious references. That is not surprising as this was written just after the turn of the century when discussions of these particular topics are not carried out in public and rarely between men and women in public, let alone in a book designed to teach both men and women. Keep in mind, that this book came out 40 to 50 years before the Kinsey studies and books on sexual practices were done and written about. Medicine and Society at a long way to go from this point in time when this section was written.

• How to Destroy Existing Mosquitoes
  
  

  How to Destroy Existing Mosquitoes.-Kill every mosquito seen about the house. Every mosquito killed in the winter or spring will lessen the number of mosquitoes in the summer by thousands. Use a paddle, made of an oblong sheet of wire gauze tacked on to a strip of wood, to serve as a handle, to kill both the fly and mosquito whenever seen. One of the best means of killing female mosquitoes (as they survive from one season to another) is to begin in the winter or early spring to fumigate the air with the following mixture :—Equal parts (by weight) of carbolic acid crystals and gum camphor. Liquify the carbolic acid crystals by gentle heat, break up gum. camphor into small pieces and then pour the liquid acid slowly over the camphor. The acid will dissolve the camphor completely and the solution formed is permanent and will evaporate slightly at ordinary temperatures.
  

  This may be one of the early books on the fight to attack mosquitoes and malaria.

  To fumigate a tightly sealed room, three ounces of this liquid will suffice for 1000 cubic feet of air space. Place it in a tin over an alcohol or other lamp and in addition place the lamp on a tin waiter or old pie plate, heat and it will require about one half hour to evaporate these three ounces of liquid. This solution is death to the mosquitoes and flies. It is not poisonous to man and is not destructive to fabrics and materials, furniture, etc. It is not explosive, but is inflammable and precaution should be taken to prevent fire. Mosquitoes found upon the ceilings of bedrooms in the evening may be quickly killed by taking a shallow tin cup or lip of a tin can, tacking it to a stick and then fill it with kerosene. Place quietly under the resting mosquito which either falls into or flies against the oil and is killed. Burn Chinese punk and mosquitoes will be driven away temporarily. Equal parts of olive oil and oil of citronella applied every half hour or so to the skin of the face, neck, hands and ankles will keep away mosquitoes. This method is useful to farmers, hunters, lumbermen or laborers about woods, swamps, etc., where mosquitoes are an annoying and disease carrying pest.

• The Stomach
  
  

  The Stomach.  — the stomach is an irregular expansion of the gullit or aesophagus, and is the receptacle which receives the food when swallowed.  Its shape has been, not inaptly, likened to the Scotch bagpipe.  It will hold about 3 pints, though it is capable of considerable distension.  When moderately filled with food it measures about 12 inches in length by 4 inches in diameter at its widest end.  The walls of the stomach consist of four distinct coats, held together by fine areolar tissue, and are arranged in the following order, from within out word: the mucous, the areolar, the muscular and the serous.  The inner mucous coat is a smooth, soft, rather thick, pulpy membrane, loosely connected with the muscular coat, and secretes the gastric digestive fluid of the stomach.
  _______

  The spelling in the section definitely gave me a few runaround’s.  The spelling of areolar and mucous and a esophagus oral spells slightly differently than they are today most of the time.  Either that or my medical contexts is extremely off base which is also possible, but I do think esophagus had a more antique like spelling as the ‘a’ and the ‘e’ were actually run together in the print as if they were one letter.  I’ve seen this printing technique before but I don’t exactly understand where or why it’s used other than for words like esophagus and even Egypt, it’s almost to signify that a hard he will follow at the beginning a word that starts with the as opposed to an egg which is not pronounced ‘eeegg’ and instead ‘ehhgg’.

  It’s not a real big thing, but it’s something that struck me as I was going through that section.  I’m sure somewhere in the world that spelling is perfectly normal.  New thing that caught my eye was the analogy of a Scottish bagpipe being similar to a stomach.  I’m not going to look it up as it’s a fact that I don’t really want to know I’d rather live with the mystery of it, but I suspect the bagpipes are made or lease were made from sheep stomachs or something like that anyway.  I could be completely wrong but like I said in this particular case it likely that mystery out there to savor for the rest of my days.  It almost picture myself taken a cross-country trip someday on a motorcycle, getting off my bike at the end of a long day of writing and walking into a café to order some food sitting down at the counter and removing my motorcycle sunglasses. 

  I’ll engage in some benign conversation with a local and will start stock about Scottish bagpipes.  My dinner guest to be the expert in Scottish bagpipes and I won’t know anything about them.  At that point in time I can finally end the mystery and I’ll ask my dinner guest if Scottish bagpipes are actually made from sheep stomach’s. I’ll probably get a ludicrous look, maybe a guffaw, and possibly a black eye.  That’s the type of thing makes life fun!