Transformation of Food Into Flesh.-- How strange this is -- the transformation of food into human flesh, into human thoughts! We eat a meal; it is composed of meat, bread, vegetables and liquids. The more solid part is ground by the teeth, mixed with the different juices, dissolved, changed, organize and is swept through the body and the circulation of the blood. Each organ sees as its own particular food as it passes. Within the cells of the various tissues it is transformed into the soft, sensitive brain, or the hard, callous bone; here into the nerve of sight, there into gristle or tendon; here briny tears are formed, they are bland saliva; in the stomach, acid juice; in the skin, acrid perspiration; bile for digestion, oil for the hair, nails for the fingers, muscle for the strong arm of toil, and flesh and fat to give shade, form and beauty to the face.
I think the previous section prepared me actually for this section. In the previous set action the author sounded like he was speaking gibberish. In this section the author or marbles at the ability of the body to turn one type of matter into another matter which is part of the human body or system. Today I look at this process as a function, a program if you will run by the programmed DNA of the human system and control by the major organs. In some ways my own interpretation is only slightly less obscure than the authors interpretation. The other marvels at something that is relatively new and highly misunderstood where is I take it for granted.
Neither one of our perspectives in that regard are more accurate than the other or may be a better way to say that is that we both have a perspective that equally valuable or valid. The author doesn't actually offer up any interpretation as to how the systems work or how it performs any of these items that they discuss, instead the author chooses just to remark on the fact that the actions are interesting even amazing.
In many ways almost any system that we talk about today might have appeared equally as amazing to the author a hundred years ago. Some of those systems could be interpreted better back then than they could stay such as the workings of kitchen faucets possibly as opposed to the workings of a Turing machine or computer neither of which had been invented as of the writing of this book, but both of which had been speculated on for many years.
In many ways it's these types of remarks it illustrates that the book is filled in large parts with what I might call science fiction or scientific interpretation or even a scientific editorial and not scientific fact.
Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:
- Video Health News from 6-19-07
Every so often we are going to add in some video news highlights from that particular day relating to health and medicine. I’m hoping to provide some contrasting perspective of modern health trends versus health trends from the 19th century.
- Second Use of Breathing
Second Use of Breathing. –Nor is the stupendousness all. Nature dislikes a waste of energy. In addition to and by a wise adaptation and economy, the process of respiration is made to sub serve a second use no less important than that of purifying the blood — the power of speech. The exhaled air, laden though it may be with the human detritus and off-scourings of the body, and passing through the vocal organs can be transformed into pairs of faith, songs of hope and words of good cheer, kindly encouragement and expressions of love!
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That section definitely fits into our bizarre grammar category. As I transcribed those words from the text using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the program really had to do some backflips. It definitely stumbled a few times on that one. there so many bizarre points of view and usages of grammar in that paragraph but I’m not sure where to begin.
I guess all start at the end. They jump into a weird peculiar and strange way of talking about the good things that people can say because they breathe air out of their lungs. Don’t blame mer if I say a curse word, blame the air I’m breathing out?
The author didn’t try to state that exactly, but they definitely used a bunch of mumbo-jumbo and so their real meaning or intention behind their words is probably lost to the ages.
- The Eye and Its Wonders
Beautiful Plate of the Eye.–The beautiful flesh-colored engraving at the right-hand top corner of this exquisite anatomical plate gives a strikingly natural, life-size representation of the human eye, together with its external appendages, the eyebrows, the eyelids, and the lachrymal or tear glands.
As I write this I have not published pictures of Chart 3, but will have it provided and uploaded shortly. Let me just say that this engraving or plate is well, a little under whelming. Could I call it a beauty?
No. Is it life sized? Oddly, not really. You’ll see for yourself soon, that this medical book doesn’t do this particular diagram justice.