THE BODY TEMPLE 55 



ter which may have been eaten with it, and converts 

 this fatty matter into a creamy substance, which is 

 readily absorbed and distributed throughout the body. 

 The pancreatic juice next finds the digesting morsel, 

 and completes the work begun by the saliva, the gas- 

 tric juice, and the bile, doing the work of these three 

 fluids much more thoroughly and efficiently than they 

 are capable of doing it themselves. The intestinal 

 juice acts upon any little portion of cane sugar which 

 may have been taken with the food, and gives the fin- 

 ishing touches to the work which has been begun by 

 the preceding digestive fluids. 



Thus the mouthful of bread is completely digested. 

 It is next absorbed by millions of hungry little mouths, 

 which are ready to suck up the digested food into the 

 blood-vessels, by which it is carried, first to the liver, 

 and thence to the heart, from which it is distributed to 

 the various parts of the body. 



Three and One-Half Pounds of Liver.— Neatly 

 tucked away under the lower ribs of the right side, is 

 one of the most wonderful organs of the whole body, 

 the liver. If you should put a little bit of its chocolate- 

 colored tissue under a microscope, you would find it 

 made up of thousands of little round cells, each of 

 which is a busy little worker, devoted to the trade of 

 bile-making. The whole structure of the liver is made 

 up of these cells together with the vessels which con- 

 vey blood through it, and the delicate system of sewers 

 which collect the bile, when it is formed by the bile- 

 making cells, and convey it into a large sac placed on 

 its under surface, called the gall bladder. A small tube 

 leads from the liver and gall bladder to the small intes- 

 tine, into which it opens a few inches below the stom- 

 ach. The weight of the entire organ is about three and 



