A LIVING, SELF-ACTING PUMP. 



295 



such a regimen it is not singular that so many thousands of 

 children annually fall victims to stomach and intestinal diseases 

 of various forms. In great numbers of cases early indiscretions 

 of this sort are the real causes of fully developed dyspepsia of 

 later years." 



A Living, Self-Acting Pump and the Elixir of Life. 



Poets and lovers wax eloquent about the heart, as though 

 it were capable of thought. We love with our heart, so we are 

 told. Well, the heart, in reality, is nothing more or less than a 

 self-acting pump, composed of four chambers, and has not any 

 sense at all. Love is the rousing into activity of certain brain 

 centres. The heart is a power- 

 ful muscle, or rather a combi- 

 nation of muscles. The two top 

 chambers are the auricles, the 

 bottom ones are the ventricles. 

 The purpose of the heart is to 

 pump the blood through the 

 body. The human heart, in 

 size and shape, is almost identi- 

 cal with that of a pig's heart. 

 The heart is situated just under 

 the breast bone, in the chest 

 cavity, which is known as the 

 thorax. It is turned slightly to 

 the left side. 



The weight of the heart averages 8 to 10 ounces in women, 

 and 10 to 12 ounces in men. We really have two hearts joined 

 together. The right side of the heart is for the purpose of 

 pumping the blood up into the lungs. The left side is for driving 

 it all over the body, hence the reason that the ventricle on the 

 left side is three or four times as thick as that on the opposite 

 side, because it has to pump the blood to the most distant parts 

 of the body ; whereas its companion only has to drive the blood 

 a very short distance. The Dugong, a warm-blooded animal 

 which lives in the ocean, and which has given rise to the mermaid 

 myth, has two hearts, quite separate, with two chambers in 

 each. 



Fig. 123. — A section of the human stomach 

 which is the most abused and overworked 

 part of the mechanism of the body. 

 (From Blackie's Physiology.) 



