Page:Love and its hidden history.djvu/99

 over three-fourths of the food taken fails of the end sought; is expelled with the waste, and the blood rushes over its course with either too few nourishing elements, or is heavily loaded with pestilential substances, utterly hostile to health and vigor, and prolific of a thousand pains and penalties. By aid of a power peculiar to myself in some respects, at least, I have been able to demonstrate that the blood is a clear lymph, in which float myriads of round red globules; and that certain chemical conditions of the system greatly alter or change the shape of these globules; and that wherever they are thus changed pain, is an absolutely certain resultant. If these globules preserve their proper shape and consistence, they glide along easily, smoothly, and deposit their treasures in proper places, — eye-material to the eyes; nail, bone, cartilage, nervous, muscle, bone, salival, prostatic, seminiferous, and other materials, all are lodged just where they are wanted. But let there be a chemical alteration, changing their shape, and the wrong materials are quite certain to go just where they are not wanted; hence irritating particles are frequently lodged in the lungs, instead of, perhaps, in the bones, where they properly belong. Now these irritant atoms are sure to beget ulcerations, which may, and often do, terminate in death. If such atoms are lodged in the brain, we have insanity, head trouble, etc. If in the nerves, neuralgia follows; if in the arterial valves, the heart suffers; if in the prostate, then seminal troubles ensue; and so of all other parts of the grand bodily machine. Perhaps, because this theory is new, it may prove offensive to antiquated medical "science;" but it is none the less true and real for all that! Any one can swallow peas, currants, or even small shot without inconvenience, because they are smooth and round; but if each pea, currant, or shot, should happen to be armed with several stiff, sharp points, leaning in all directions, the task were a great deal less agreeable. Now, if the blood be loaded down with acid acrid, or other morbid matters, indicating a change of chemical condition, as well as of magnetic and electric polarity, the blood globules become flattened, bulged, angular, and pointed; hence they clog and impede the general circulation. Lodge these angular atoms here, there, and everywhere, and we are forthwith tortured with sciatica, gout, rheumatism, acute, stationary, chronic, or flying. Flying, why? Because by hot fomentations, rubbing,