RESPIRATION 197 



to such emanations from the body, more than to any other 

 cause, are due the depressing and even fatal results which 

 follow the crowding of large numbers of persons into places 

 of limited capacity. (Read Note 3.) 



18. History furnishes many painful instances of the ill 

 effects of overcrowding. In 1756, of one hundred and forty- 

 six Englishmen imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta, 

 only twenty-three, at the elid of eight hours, survived. After 

 the battle of Austerlitz, three hundred prisoners were crowded 

 into a cavern, where, in a few hours, two-thirds of their num- 



3. The Two Breaths. " Every time you breathe, you breathe two 

 different breaths : you take in one, you give out another. The compo- 

 sition of those two breaths is different. Their effects are different. The 

 breath which has been breathed out must not be breathed in again. To 

 tell you why it must not would lead me into anatomical details, not quite 

 in place here as yet ; but this I may say : those who habitually take in 

 fresh breath will probably grow up large, strong, ruddy, cheerful, active, 

 clear-headed fit for their work. Those who habitually take in the 

 breath which has been breathed out by themselves, or any other living 

 creature, will certainly grow up if they grow up at all small, weak, 

 pale, nervous, depressed, unfit for work, and tempted continually to 

 resort to stimulants and become drunkards. 



" If you want to see how different the breath breathed out is from the 

 breath taken in, you have only to try a somewhat cruel experiment, but 

 one which people too often try upon themselves, their children, and their 

 work-people. If you take any small animal with lungs like your own 

 a mouse for instance and force it to breathe no air but what you have 

 breathed already ; if you put it in a close box, and, while you take in 

 breath from the outer air, send out your breath through a tube into that 

 box, the animal will soon faint ; if you go on long with this process, he 

 will die. * * * * What becomes of this breath which passes from 

 your lips ? Is it merely harmful, merely waste ? God forbid ! God has 

 forbidden that anything should be merely harmful or merely waste in this 

 so wise and well-made world. The carbonic acid gas which passes from 

 your lips at every breath is a precious boon to thousands of things of 

 which you have daily need. For though you must not breathe your 

 breath again, you may at least eat your breath, if you will allow the sun 

 to transmute it for you into vegetables ; or you may enjoy its fragrance 

 and its color in the shape of a lily or a rose. When you walk in a sun- 

 lit garden, every word you speak, every breath you breathe, is feeding 

 the plants and flowers around." Rev. Charles Kingsley on the Two 

 Breaths. 



18. Give some of the instances furnished by history. 



