Page:Hatha yoga - or the yogi philosophy of physical well-being, with numberous excercises.djvu/45

Rh while the other products of the digested food pass through the portal vein and the liver on their journey—so that, although they take different routes, they meet again in the circulating blood.

So, you will see, the blood is the constituent of the body which, directly or indirectly, furnishes nourishment and life to all the parts of the body. If the blood is poor, or the circulation weak, nutrition of some parts of the body must be impaired, and diseased conditions will result. The blood supplies about one-tenth of man's weight. Of this amount about one-quarter is distributed in the heart, lungs, large arteries and veins; about one-quarter in the liver; about one-quarter in the muscles, the remaining quarter being distributed among the remaining organs and tissues. The brain utilizes about one-fifth of the entire quantity of blood.

Remember, always, in thinking about the blood, that the blood is what you make it by the food you eat, and the way you eat it. You can have the very best kind of blood, and plenty of it, by selecting the proper foods, and by eating such food as Nature intended you to do. Or, on the other hand, you may have very poor blood, and an insufficient quantity of it, by foolish gratification of the abnormal Appetite, and by improper eating (not worthy of the name) of any kind of food. The blood is the life—and you make the blood—that is the matter in a nut-shell.

Now, let us pass on to the crematory of the lungs, and see what is going to happen to that blue, impure venous blood, which has come back from all parts of the body, laden with impurities and waste matter. Let us have a look at the crematory.