CHAPTER VII 



Respiration 



First among the most imperative needs to 

 which we are subject are those of eating and 

 drinking. There is, however, one need to 

 which hunger and thirst, however insistent, 

 must give way, a need ever recurring and 

 never satisfied, felt incessantly whether awake 

 or asleep, by night and by day, at every 

 hour, at every moment. This is the need 

 of air. 



Air is so necessary to life that we cannot 

 regulate our use of it, as we do that of food 

 and drink, so as to protect ourselves from 

 the fatal consequences which the slightest 

 neglect would entail, It is without our 

 knowledge, independently of our will, that the 

 air penetrates into our bodies, to play its 

 wonderful part. Above all we live on air, 

 ordinary food being only of secondary import- 

 ance. The need of food is only experienced 

 at fairly long intervals ; the need of air is 



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