Proceedings of the Polytechnic Association. 887 



venience seem to have been provided, yet pure air, in sufficient 

 quantity, was not supplied ; wliile in the field hospital, though much 

 was lacking, the supply of pure air was abundant. 



Again, the statistics of Europe and of the United States, touching 

 this matter, demonstrate most clearly that, other things being equal, 

 outdoor employments are the most healthy, and contribute most to 

 longevity. 



I think it needs no argument to demonstrate the proposition, that 

 man was intended by the Creator to breathe pure air. 



Therefore, breathing other than pure air is a violation of God's 

 law ; and that, for so doing, we must and do suffer the penalty. 



There is a vast amount of diseased humanity in the world, as indi- 

 cated by the number of physicians, and the vast amount of nostrums 

 offering themselves to mitigate the pain, and to cure the ill. But 

 there is no philosopher's stone, no elixir of life, no royal high road 

 to health. Only by regarding the conditions, observing the laws, 

 working in God's appointed way, can we enjoy the blessings of health. 

 And as the breath is most emphatically the life, the character of the 

 fluid we breathe, to a great extent, determines the character of our 

 physical hfe, whether it be good or evil. 



The Physiology of Respiration. 



It is said that we breathe to purify the blood. But how ? Why is 

 it, then, when we wish to preserve, to keep pure air, organized 

 matter, as vegetables or meat, we remove as far as possible, all air, 

 and secure it from its action ? If the air will purify the blood, why 

 not meat, or any other organized body ? Now, we know that the air, 

 or the positive acting agent, the oxygen, always acts as a destroyer ; 

 its sole office is to tear down, to break up all organic compounds, and 

 resolve their elements into simple and more stable groups. Its office 

 and tendency is everywhere the same ; and unless this tendency be 

 resisted by some antagonizing force, the oxygen would speedily and 

 completely destroy the whole organized world. Then why does not 

 oxygen destroy the animal ? It does, and yet does not. It feeds 

 upon the very tissues of the body, and is fed by them ; it. demands 

 victims to be sacrificed, to appease its never satiated appetite ; and, 

 were it not for that strange and mighty force which we name and 

 recognize, but do not comprehend, vitality, which regulates and con- 

 trols the action of this agent, it would speedily resolve all organized 

 matter into stable and lifeless forms. Literally, the organized world. 



