Page:Love and its hidden history.djvu/60

 There spoke the true woman heart. Don't you think so, dear reader? If not, read it over.

There's a great deal of common sense in this scrap:— "Mr. Stomach sends his respects to Mr. Brain, requesting him, if convenient, not to undertake any strong intellectual effort after a hearty dinner; as he wishes to bring the strongest possible concentration of vital power upon the meal just consigned to him, for its proper digestion." Wonders at home by familiarity cease to excite astonishment, and hence it happens that many know but little about the "house we live in" — the human body. We look upon a house from the outside, just as a whole or unit, never thinking of the many rooms, the curious passages, and the ingenious internal arrangements of the house, or of the wonderful structure of the man, the harmony and adaptation of all his parts. In the human skeleton at maturity, there are one hundred and sixty-five bones. The muscles are over five hundred in number. The length of the alimentary canal is about thirty-two feet. The amount of blood in an adult averages thirty pounds, or full one-fifth of the entire weight. The heart is six inches in length and four inches in diameter, and beats seventy times per minute, four thousand two hundred times per hour, one hundred thousand eight hundred per day, thirty-six million seven hundred and seventy-two thousand times per year, two billions five hundred and sixty-five millions four hundred and forty thousand in three-score and ten, and at each beat two and a half ounces of blood are thrown out of it, one hundred and seventy-five ounces per minute, six hundred and fifty-six pounds per hour, seven and three-fourth tons per day. All the blood in the body passes through the heart in three minutes. This little organ, by its ceaseless industry, lifts the enormous weight of three hundred and seventy millions seven hundred thousand two hundred tons. The lungs will contain about one gallon of air, at their usual degree of inflation. We breathe on an average twelve hundred times per hour, inhale six hundred gallons of air, or twenty-four thousand gallons per day. The aggregate surface of the air-cells of the lungs exceeds twenty thousand square inches, an area very nearly equal to the floor of a room twelve feet square. The average weight of the brain in an adult male is three pounds and eight ounces; of a female, two pounds and four ounces. The nerves are