92 THE HUMAN LUNGS. 



blood is conveyed in the pulmonary vessel; the blood which is pure 

 and young as the heart can make it, runs parallel with the former 

 in the bronchial. The pulmonary blood is to become regenerate in 

 the lungs ; the bronchial is the running model of its future state, 

 and exercises a contagion of youth upon its pulmonary associate. 

 For nature never prescribes an end, without showing a present 

 example of it. 



The air ministers to the blood an infinity of fine endowments 

 which chemistry does not appreciate. How full it is of odors and 

 iufluences that other animals, if not man, discern, and which in 

 certain states of disease and over-susceptibility, become sensible to 

 all : moreover at particular seasons all fertile countries are bathed 

 in the fragrance shaken from their vegetable robes. Is it conceiv- 

 able that this aroma of four continents emanating from the life of 

 plants has no communication with our impressible blood ? Is it 

 reasonable to regard it as an accidental portion of the atmosphere ? 

 Is it not certain that each spring and season is a force which is 

 propagated onwards; that the orderly supply, according to the 

 months, of these subtlest dainties of the sense, corresponds to fixed 

 conditions of the atmospheric and imponderable world adequate to 

 receive and contain them ; that the skies are the medium and 

 market of the kingdoms, whither life resorts with its lungs, to 

 buy ; that therefore the winds are cases of odors ; and that distinct 

 aromas, obeying the laws of time and place, conform also to other 

 laws, and are not lost, but are drawn and appreciated by our blood. 

 Nay more, that there is an incessant economy of the breath and 

 emanations of men and animals, and that these are a permanent 

 company and animal kingdom in the air. It is indeed no matter 

 of doubt, that the air is a product elaborated from all the king- 

 doms ; that the seasons are its education ; that spring begins and 

 sows it ; that summer puts in the airy flowers and autumn the airy 

 fruits, which close-fisted winter shuts up ripe in wind granaries for 

 the use of lungs and their dependent forms. Thus it is passed 

 through the fingers of every herb and growing thing, and each en- 

 riches its clear shining tissue with a division of labor, and a succes- 

 sion of touches, at least as great as goes to the manufacture of a 

 pin. Whosoever then looks upon air as one unvaried thing, is like 



