224 THE HOUSE I LIVE IN. 



CAPILLARIES. They appear to forget also 

 the structure and nature of the little arteries 

 sometimes called capillaries found in such 

 numbers in the skin, in the muscles, and indeed 

 everywhere in the body. The truth is, that 

 the coats of these little vessels are muscular, 

 and it is a pretty well established fact that they 

 have the power of drawing the blood from the 

 heart. Dr. Smith, late an eminent professor 

 of Surgery in Yale College, thought that these 

 capillary vessels did almost all the work ; the 

 heart doing very little. 



Others too have thought the same. They 

 viewed them, something in the light of little 

 pumps, all over the body, that were continually 

 pumping up the blood from the deep well of 

 the heart to the extremities of the remotest 

 chambers of the body. You may form some 

 idea of their meaning, by thinking of the Astor 

 House in New York, and other public houses 

 built on the same plan, where water is carried 

 by means of pumps and other machinery to 

 every room in the house, even to the highest 

 story and the remotest chambers. 



The truth here as almost always happens 

 -fajls between extremes. The heart really 



