38 The Bulletin. 



blood, etc., 80 blood is made up of three things. The first is the liquid part called 

 plasma. Tliis is a clear, pale yellow fluid. 



Tlien, like fish moving in a river, are red objects. These are the red corpuscles 

 and they look something like tiny little pie pans thickened at the edges. Their 

 important work in life is to carry the oxygen to all parts of the body. If we are 

 looking for lessons there are two right here. One is that every one of God's 

 creations has its work to do; and second, that He sometimes entrusts His most 

 important work to the smallest and most inconspicuous workers. 



White corpuscles form a third substance in the blood. These look like little 

 clear drops of apple jelly. The doctors were many hundreds of years in finding 

 their reason for existence. They thought they must be the dead red corpuscles. 

 Our Creator, however, knew, as we could not, what was their use. We did not 

 yet realize that there was such an enemy to the human body as a germ. He knew 

 and made provision for it. Deep down within the hollow of the bones is a safe 

 birthplace for these white corpuscles. There they are protected, little affected 

 by tlie thousand ills or disturbances of the flesh. They emerge from their safe 

 abode ready for their own great life-work — that of defending the body from dis- 

 ease, and this is how they do it: 



When a disease germ enters the body these white corpuscles, which do not con- 

 fine tliemselves at all to the plasma, but wander where they will through the 

 tissues of the body, approach the germ, and one of them attempts to surround 

 and digest it. Meanwhile the germ is growing and it is a question as to which 

 is the stronger, the corpuscle or the germ. If the germ be stronger and there 

 are enough of them, disease will take place; if the white corpuscle be stronger, 

 the body will never know how near it came to contagion. 



From all this it will be seen that when we take medicine "for our blood" we 

 do not make more blood but increase the number of corpuscles in the amount 

 which we already have. 



What was said of an egg ought to be said of the blood. It is 



"Nature's treasure house, wherein lies, 

 Locked by angels' alchemy. 

 Milk and hair and blood and bone." 



There was a time, not many years past, when we thought that since there is 

 so much in the blood it would be an excellent thing for anaemic persons to drink 

 it to become strong. That was, however, a mistake. As soon drink the whole 

 river to obtain the fish, or to expect the spoon which carries the food to the 

 mouth to be of nutritive value. 



The story of how the blood travels the body and what it does is one of the 

 most interesting stories that could be read. It is sufficient to say here, however, 

 that every time the heart beats, and it does so about seventy times a minute, it 

 sends about half a tumbler full of blood out into the arteries through strong 

 elastic tubes. Think of how much is sent out into the body in twenty -four hours! 



The heart is divided into two parts, each part of which is endowed with strong 

 muscles that relax and contract. One-half of the heart becomes relaxed and 

 filled with bright red blood. Suddenly the heart contracts and spurts this stream 

 of pure clean blood out into the arteries to be distributed to all parts of the 

 body. There it gives up to skin or bone or muscle or brain or liver its supply 

 of oxygen and food material and takes instead worn-out dead cells and poisons. 

 The blood that went bounding out bright red comes quietly back to the heart, a 

 dark, purplish stream. There the other side of the heart relaxes, receives it, con- 

 tracts and pumps it to the lungs where the oxygen of the air, purified by God's 

 free gift of sunshine, is exchanged for the poison of the blood, carbon dioxide. 

 Again the other side of the heart relaxes and the pure, health-giving blood fills 

 it to be once more sent forth. It is as if our grocer's cart came to us ever so 

 often filled with fine meat and bread and vegetables and went away laden with 

 garbage to be by some miracle again suddenly changed into more fresh, nourishing 

 provisions for the next day's supply. When a mother understands this she is 

 not going to say: "I don't want to put my baby out on the porch to sleep; she 

 likes the dim, closed room better." She may like the dimness, but the closed 

 room is certainly not better for the little growing body, and the eyes can be 

 easily shaded. 



