®he IMtiion Series 
Physiology and Health 
NUMBER ONE 
FOR PRIMARY CLASSES 
STUDIES OF THE HUMAN BODY AND OF THE EFFECTS 
OF ALCOHOLIC DRINKS AND NARCOTICS 
UPON LIFE AND HEALTH 
PHILADELPHIA 
E. H. BUTLER & CO. ANNOUNCEMENT. 
Messrs. Ivison, Blakeman, and Company having 
published, under our advice and supervision, the 
Union Series of Text-Books on Physiology and Health, 
comprising- 
I.- No. 1. -For Primary Classes. 
II.-No. 2.-For Intermediate Classes. 
III. - No. 3.-For Secondary Classes. 
We take great pleasure in endorsing the same, and in 
recommending their use as School Text-Books. They 
not only teach the important truths demanded by recent 
legislation, but teach them in language adapted to the 
comprehension of the grade of pupils for which each 
book is specified. 
MARY H. HUNT, 
National Supt. Dept, of Scientific Instruction of the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
of the United States. 
ADVISORY BOARD FOR U. S. A. 
Albert H. Plumb, D. D. 
Daniel Dorchester, D. D. 
Hon. William E. Sheldon. 
Rev. Joseph Cook. 
Copyright, 1889. by Ivison, Blakeman & Company. PREFACE. 
Most of our States and Territories now by 
law require that Physiology and Hygiene be 
taught in the Public Schools, with special refer- 
ence to the effects of Alcoholic Drinks and 
other Narcotics on the human system. Many 
existing books, prepared to meet the demands 
of the first enactments on this subject, do not 
fulfill the requirements of more recent legis- 
lation. The present work is designed to teach 
the essential laws of health, and to comply 
fully with the most stringent provisions of the 
enactments requiring this subject taught, by 
conforming to their primary object, namely: 
To have the children instructed as to the nat- 
ure of Alcoholic Drinks and other Narcotics, 
and the results of their use, and thus to fore- 
warn them against the insidious poisons that 
are the constant cause of so much misery and 
crime. 
iii iv 
PREFACE. 
As much of Anatomy and Physiology is 
taught as is necessary to this end. But these 
sciences do not usurp the space and time that 
belong to the more important aims contem- 
plated by the requirements which this book 
is intended to meet. 
The endeavor has been to make the phys- 
iological instruction clear and sufficient,-the 
Temperance teachings thorough, and as radi- 
cal as the whole truth now revealed by modern 
scientific investigation. 
The work throughout has been more or less 
prepared and wholly supervised by Mrs. Mary 
H. Hunt, the superintendent of the Department 
of Scientific Instruction of the National Wo- 
man's Christian Temperance Union, and the 
Advisory Committee of the same, to whom 
the publishers are under great obligations. 
New York, August, 1889. CONTENTS. 
PAGE 
CHAPTER I. 
Introductory 7 
CHAPTER IL 
Our Food 11 
CHAPTER HI. 
Drinks 21 
CHAPTER IV. 
Alcoholic Drinks . . 25 
CHAPTER V. 
Wine. - Beer. - Distilled Liquors ..... 30 
CHAPTER VI. 
Digestion 39 
CHAPTER VII. 
The Blood 46 
CHAPTER VIII. 
Breathing. - Ventilation ....... 56 
V vi 
CONTENTS. 
PAGE 
CHAPTER IX. 
The Bones and Joints 65 
CHAPTER X. 
Motion 70 
CHAPTER XI. 
4 
Brain and Nerves 77 
CHAPTER XII. 
The Skin 85 
CHAPTER XIII. 
The Senses. - The Eye. - The Ear 92 PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
CHAPTER I. 
INTRODUCTORY. 
1. Did you ever keep a garden-plot? If so, 
you found that your How- 
ers or vegetables did well 
when you took good care 
of them, and did ill when 
you. neglected them. If 
some other garden looked 
better than yours, it was because the owner 
knew better what to do for it, or worked 
7 8 
UNION SER J NS, NO. 1. 
more than you did. Garden plants do not 
thrive without care. 
2. Compare the lean and rough-coated horse 
of your shiftless 
neighbor with the 
sleek, plump horse 
of a careful, thrifty 
man, and you will 
see that animals do 
not thrive without 
proper attention. 
3. In the poorest 
streets of the city 
are many children 
with dull eyes and 
sallow faces, who, 
if they were properly clothed and fed and 
washed, would be rosy and bright. Children 
do not thrive well without care. 
4. To be well and strong, we must take care 
of our bodies. In order to take care of them, 
we must know what they need, what is good 
for them, and what will injure them. 
5. Our appetites are intended to guide us, 
but they must not control us. The lower PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
9 
animals are governed by their appetites, but 
human beings must be governed by reason. 
If we do not know how to take proper care of 
our bodies, we are in a worse condition than 
any of the lower animals, for their appetites 
seldom lead them to do themselves any harm. 
Ours often lead us astray. 
6. One of the most common ways of in- 
juring the body is by the use of alcoholic 
drinks, tobacco, and other poisons. Many 
grown people even are ignorant of the effects 
of these substances. People often begin to use 10 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
them without knowing what harm they are 
doing themselves. This little book is intended 
to teach you how to take care of your health, 
and to point out to you the harm which comes 
from taking beer and other alcoholic drinks, 
and from smoking or chewing tobacco. 
QUESTIONS. 
I. - 1. What are the effects of care and neglect on a garden- 
plot ? 2. What are the effects of care and neglect on horses ? 
3, 4. What are their effects on children ? 5. For what are our 
bodies intended? 6. What is one of the most common ways of 
injuring the body? What is the purpose of this book? 11 
PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
CHAPTER II. 
OUR FOOD. 
I 
1. Twice or three times a day you sit down 
at a table to eat and drink. Every one you 
know does the same thing. In our manufac- 
tories, workshops, and schools the noon bell is 
the signal for all to cease working and to go 
and eat. No matter how important the busi- 
ness or the study, it must wait while we 
eat our food. 
2. People spend from one to two hours each 
day in eating and drinking, and sometimes 
more. It takes all the time of many cooks 
and housekeepers to prepare food. And the 
heads of families work hard every day to get 
money to buy what is needed for meals. We 
can state truthfully that a large share of the 
time and labor of the whole world is used in 
getting and preparing and eating food. 12 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
3. Do you know why we spend so much 
time in this way ? You eat and drink because 
you are hungry and thirsty, and you enjoy 
it. Can you remember the time when you 
were not hungry, and 
yet your friends urged 
you to eat something? 
We all know that there 
are many things that we would enjoy eating, 
but we are not allowed to have them often. 
So it is not only because we are hungry, or 
for enjoyment, that we eat. PHYSIOLOG Y AND HEALTH. 
13 
4. A tired mother would often omit to get 
dinner, and cooks would run away from the 
hot stove, and fathers would stop working 
many a day, if it were only for pleasure that 
we eat. 
5. We must eat and drink to keep alive. 
Some people need little food and others need a 
great deal. But all must eat something every 
day. If we should stop eating, we would grow 
thin and weak and would die very soon. Per- 
sons have been known to live more than a 
month without eating, but most people would 
die in much less time than that. 
ii 
1. The most of our food grows from the 
ground. The warm sun shines and the rain 
falls on the earth, and the grain and the vege- 
tables and the plants grow and ripen, and we 
gather and store them up. 
Grains. 
2. Wheat, barley, corn, and oats are seeds. 
The farmer raises them, and stores a part to 
sow the following year, and the rest is taken 14 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
to the miller to be ground. From the wheat 
comes the flour that we make into loaves of 
bread. From corn and oats comes the meal 
that makes cakes and porridge, and pearl- 
barley we use in making soup. 
3. The Chinese and Hindoos live mostly on 
rice. Rice is not often ground, but is boiled 
or made into a pudding. Rye and barley are 
good food; but the best of all the grains is 
wheat, and the finest bread is made from 
wheaten flour. 
Vegetables. 
4. Most people like potatoes. They are a 
wholesome and light food when boiled, baked 
or stewed; but fried potatoes are not good for 
every one, because of the fat in them. The 15 
PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
sweet potato grows in warm climates, and is 
rich in taste. It is heavier and less digestible 
than the white potato. 
5. Turnips and beets are roots, like the po- 
tato, and are sweet and good. 
6. Lettuce, spinach, celery, and other green 
vegetables are pleasant to the taste and health- 
ful, but they do not of themselves give much 
strength. 
7. If you had to choose the best two articles 
of vegetable food, you would select wheaten 
bread and the white potato, would you not? 
But it is better to have a variety. 
8. Fruits do not contain much solid sub- 
stance. They have a great deal of juice which 
is mostly water. If you had to live on fruit 
entirely, you would not grow fat or strong. 
But we all like apples, oranges, pears, grapes, 
and other fruits and berries. And they are 
very useful. It gives us pleasure to eat them, 
and they help us to digest other food. 
9. It is well to form the habit of eating a 
little fruit before breakfast. The old proverb 
says: " Fruit is gold in the morning, silver at 
noon, and lead at night." That means that 16 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
apples and some other fruits when eaten in 
the evening sometimes make a " lump in the 
stomach,11 and give us a restless night and 
bad dreams. Fruit that is not ripe should 
not be eaten at any time. 
Animal Food. 
10. Once or twice a day is often enough to 
eat meat. In some countries they do not eat it 
at all. The natives of India 
do not eat animal food, be- 
cause they do not think it 
right to do so. Many 
people do not eat it 
because they cannot 
get it. It is more 
expensive than vege- 
table food. The Es- 
quimaux, who live 
near the North Pole, have to live chiefly on 
the meat of bears, walrus, and other animals 
during their long winters. But the people of 
those countries, where both animal and vege- 
table food is eaten, are larger and stronger 
than those who live on animal or vegetable 
food alone 17 
PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
11. The best meat to eat is beef. Mutton, 
poultry and game are good food. Pork is the 
meat used by many peo- 
ple during the winter 
months. It is not as 
healthful as beef. 
12. Fish and oysters 
we get from the water, 
and are good when fresh 
but very bad when stale. 
The rule that we must 
not eat oysters in the 
months that have not 
an "r" in their names 
is a good one. 
13. Eggs and milk are 
both animal foods. Eggs must be very good 
food; for the chick in the egg lives on it for 
many days before the shell breaks. Then you 
will find nothing left of the yolk and white 
of the egg.. It has all gone into the chick, 
which then needs another kind of food. 
14. Babies live on milk for months. Sick 
people often take nothing but milk. It has 
in it everything that is needed to make the 
body grow. 18 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
Mineral Food. 
15. We have to eat a good deal of mineral 
food. Our bones, for example, are partly made 
of lime, and we must have lime in our food 
to keep the bones in good repair and to make 
them grow. But we could not eat pure lime 
itself. The lime that we eat is found in our 
bread and milk, meat and potatoes, and other 
food. You cannot see it or taste it, because 
there is very little of it, and it is really a 
part of the food. But it is certainly there; 
we could not live if we did not have it. 
16. Salt is the only mineral that we eat pure. 
in 
Cooking. 
1. Why do we cook our food? It takes a 
great deal of time. Why do we not eat it raw 
as animals do? 
2. Much of our food we could not eat, if it 
were not cooked. You would find it difficult 
to eat meal and flour in that way. And if 
you succeeded in swallowing a little, it would 
make your stomach feel badly. A raw potato 19 
PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
would be hard and coarse. Raw beef can be 
eaten, but it is very tasteless. 
3. When the flour is made into light and 
delicate bread, and when the potato is boiled 
until it becomes dry 
and mealy, it is pleas- 
ant to the taste and is 
easy to eat and digest. 
Beef gives out an agreeable smell, and tastes 
well when nicely roasted or broiled. Cooking 
makes quite a change in these and many other 
articles of food. 
4. It is easy to spoil good food and make 
it unhealthful by bad cooking. A good cook 
can make common and cheap food very whole- 
some. All girls should learn something about 
cooking food. A cooking-stove is a more useful 
thing than a piano. 
5. Work that helps to make the children 20 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
grow, and to keep the grown folks well and 
happy, is surely worth time and attention. 
6. We should eat to live, and not live to 
eat. Any one who eats his food merely for 
enjoyment makes a mistake. He is likely to 
eat and drink things that are too rich for his 
stomach, and to cause it some injury. 
7. It is foolish and wicked to eat and drink 
that which does us harm, for the sake of the 
pleasure it gives us. Very many people injure 
themselves in this way by using intoxicating 
drinks. 
QUESTIONS. 
I. - 1, 2, 3. Why do we spend so much time eating and drink- 
ing? 4. Do we eat merely for pleasure? 5. Can we safely go 
without eating?. Do all need to eat the same? 
II. - 1. Where does most of our food come from? 2, 3. What 
grains do we eat? 4, 5. What vegetables do we eat most of? 
6. What green vegetables are pleasant and healthful? 7. What 
are the two best articles of vegetable food ? 8, 9. What is the 
chief use of fruits as food. 10. What is the chief use of animal 
food? 11. What meats are best to eat? 12. What is said of fish 
and oysters? 13. Of eggs? 14. Of milk? 15. What is the use of 
mineral food ? 
III. -1, 2, 3. Why do we cook our food? 4, 5. Why should 
all girls learn to cook? G, 7. What is the best rule for eating? PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
21 
CHAPTER HI. 
DRINKS, 
1. What is more beautiful than.pure water? 
And what is more delicious when one is 
thirsty! It is dreadful to be starving and 
have nothing to eat, but it is worse to be 
very thirsty and have nothing to drink. You 
would hardly believe me if I should tell you 
how much water there is in your body. But 
you know that you cannot eat anything unless 
you first chew it, and mix it with water in 22 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
your mouth. You know, too, that the blood 
which flows in every part of your body con- 
sists chiefly of water. If we could obtain no 
water our blood would become thick, our skins 
would grow dry and leathery, and we should 
soon die. Water is the best of drinks; and 
because it is so necessary to us, Nature makes 
us crave it and enjoy it. 
2. Good water may become bad. You would 
not drink water that had a bad taste or bad 
smell. You would not drink water that was 
dirty or had anything distasteful in it. 
3. But water may be perfectly clear and 
sparkling; it may have no foul taste or smell, 
and still be bad. When water runs near a 
drain, or cess-pool, or barn-yard, the settlings 
from these places may soak through the earth 
and mix with the water, and make it bad with- 
out making it look or smell or taste bad. 
4. People sometimes poison themselves with 
bad water without knowing it. The only safe 
way is to have the barn-yard and cess-pool 
far away from the well and water-pipes, and 
to be sure that the drain does not leak. 
5. Water sometimes gets poisoned by the PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
23 
lead-pipes through which it runs. It does 
not look or taste different, and people go on 
drinking it until they begin to be sick. They 
commonly have some pain in the stomach, 
and sometimes they become paralyzed. 
6. Milk, besides being good for food, is a 
very refreshing drink. A glass of milk with 
meals is better than a glass of ice-water. 
7. Hot coffee and tea are used by grown 
people, and sometimes they are given to chil- 
dren. But this is not right. Children do not 
need hot drinks with their food if they are 
well, and coffee and tea are not good for their 
stomachs and their nerves. 
8. Chocolate and cocoa are better than tea 
and coffee for children. Sometimes a child 
who is not well needs a warm drink with 24 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
meals. " Cambric tea " (milk and hot water 
sweetened) is very good for such children. 
9. Lemonade is refreshing in hot weather, 
and is wholesome. The juices of other fruits 
are used to make drinks, which have a pleas- 
ant flavor and do no harm. Soda water is a 
favorite drink. It is sparkling and pleasant, 
but the sweet syrups which are used in it 
leave one as thirsty as before. 
10. These drinks are harmless. But there 
are other drinks used by many people which are 
poisonous, though their effects may seem pleas- 
ant at first. Such drinks have many different 
names,-cider, beer, wine, whisky, gin, brandy, 
etc. But they are all alike in one thing. They 
all contain alcohol, and it is the alcohol in 
them that makes them injurious. 
I. - 1. Why do we need to drink? What is the best drink? 
2, 3. How may water become impure? 4. How may we best 
keep water pure? 5. How is water poisoned by lead-pipes? 6. 
What animal food is both meat and drink ? 7. Should children 
drink coffee and tea? 8. Chocolate? 9. Lemonade and fruit 
drinks ? Soda water ? 10. Compare these with harmful poison- 
ous drinks. 
QUESTIONS. PHWSJOWGK AND HEALTH. 
25 
CHAPTER IV. 
ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 
Cider. 
1. Green apples are hard and sour. They 
will be apt to make you sick if you try to eat 
them. But ripe apples are softer, their juice 
has a sweeter flavor, and they are good to eat. 
2. Sometimes men put their apples to a 
bad use by making them into a drink, called 
cider. They grind or crush them, and press 
out the juice, and let it stand in barrels or 
tubs. Apple-juice, when treated in this way, 
quickly changes to a dangerous drink. 
3. What makes it change? Something that 
is called a ferment. You cannot see a ferment 
with the naked eye, it is so very small. 
4. If you ever looked through a microscope, 
you saw that it made a tiny speck of dust 
look very large. Men have seen the ferments 
by looking at them through the microscope, 
and have watched what they do. 26 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
5. In this way it has been found that the 
ferments are so light and small that they 
can float in the air, and that they often rest 
on the skins or stems of fruit, though we do 
not see them with the naked eye. 
6. When the juice of the apple is pressed 
out, these ferments at once get into it and 
change it. They do this by turning the sugar 
of the juice into something else. 
7. How does sugar get into the apple-juice? PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
27 
No one puts it in as you put sugar into your 
" cambric tea," but as the apples ripen the 
sugar forms in them. The sweetest and ripest 
apples have the most sugar in their juices. 
8. When the juice of apples is pressed out, 
the ferments turn the sugar into a gas* that 
bubbles out to the air, and into a clear liquid 
that stays in the cider. That clear liquid is 
called alcohol. It is a poison. It makes the 
cider a poison. 
9. A poison may not quickly kill a person 
who takes only a little at first. But it is the 
nature of a little poison to injure one's health. 
Enough will kill whoever takes it. 
10. Alcohol is a bad poison. It is its nature 
to make one who takes a little, in such a drink 
as cider, want more, and if he takes more he 
will want still more. It is the nature of alco- 
hol to make a person not care if he does 
wrong. Often it makes those who drink it 
wish to do wicked and evil deeds. 
11. Alcohol generally forms in cider in about 
six hours after the juice has been pressed out 
of the apples. If the weather is cold the fer- 
* Carbonic acid gas. 28 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
merits will not work as fast, and it will be 
longer before alcohol forms. 
12. Each day after the cider is made, there 
will be more and more alcohol in it, as the 
ferments turn its sugar into that poison. The 
person who keeps on drinking cider each day 
after it is made, will get more and more alco- 
hol. When the ferments have turned most of 
the sugar in the cider into alcohol, it is called 
" hard cider." 
13. Ferments cannot change dry sugar into 
alcohol. They do not change the sugar in the 
apple-juice to alcohol while that juice stays 
in the apple. 
14. There is no alcohol in apples or other 
fruits or vegetables as these ripen for us to 
eat. When apples decay or rot, they are not 
fit to eat. But this is not because there is 
alcohol in them. Their decay is not caused 
by the ferments that turn the sugar in cider 
into alcohol. 
15. You have learned that the ripest and 
sweetest apples have the most sugar in their 
juices. Can you tell why more alcohol will 
form in the juice that has been pressed out PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
29 
of ripe, sweet apples than in that from sourer 
or greener fruits? 
16. Once people did not know that the fer- 
ments turn the sugar in the pressed-out apple- 
juice into alcohol. They did not understand 
that alcohol is a poison. They thought that 
as apples are good cider must he good also, 
but that is not true. 
17. It is the nature of cider to make its 
drinkers want more. Cider has made many 
drunkards. It makes those who drink it cross 
and ugly-tempered, and often cruel and care- 
less about doing right. You should not drink 
cider, because there is alcohol in it. If cider 
is left in a warm place long enough, the alco- 
hol in it will turn to an acid. After that it is 
no longer called cider but vinegar. There is no 
alcohol in vinegar. 
-- 
QUESTIONS. 
I. - 1, 2. What poisonous drink is made of apples? 3, 4. What 
changes the apple-juice to a dangerous drink? 5, 6. How do the 
ferments act? 7. How does sugar get into the apple-juice? 8. 
How is the alcohol formed? 9, 10. What is the nature of alcoholic 
poison? 11, 12. Does the alcohol keep increasing in cider? 
What is hard cider? 15. What apples make the most alcohol? 
16, 17. What is the effect of cider-drinking? 30 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
CHAPTER V. 
WINE-BEER-DISTILLED LIQUORS. 
I 
Wine. 
1. As grapes ripen sugar forms in their 
juices, just as it does in the juice of apples. 
2. Ripe grapes are a healthful fruit and 
very pleasant to eat. There is no alcohol in 
them. But if the juice of grapes is pressed 
out, the ferments will get in and will soon 
turn the sugar in such grape-juice to a gas 
that will pass in bubbles out of the liquid, 
and to alcohol that will stay in it. When the 
juice of grapes is pressed out it is called wine. 
The ferments will quickly turn the sugar in 
such a juice to alcohol. 
3. Because alcohol is a poison, it makes the 
wine which contains it also a poison. Some 
wines are nearly one-quarter alcohol, others 
less. The more alcohol there is in any kind PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH, 
31 
of wine, the more poisonous it makes the 
wine. 
Home-made Wine. 
4. People sometimes make wine at home 
from grapes or berries, and think there is no 
alcohol in it because they put none in. They 
are mistaken; the ferments change the sugar 
to alcohol in the home-made wine as they do 
in other wines, and the alcohol makes it an 
unsafe drink. 
5. It is the nature of wine, like that of cider, 
to make one who drinks it want more. The 
appetite for wine has led many people to ruin. 
If you never drink it at all, it can never 
hurt you. 
Beer. 
6. There is alcohol in beer. 
7. Beer is made from grain, generally from 
barley. Grain is dry; it is mostly starch. It 
has no sweet juice to be squeezed out as 
grapes and other fruits have. 
8. How can a drink that has alcohol in it 
be made from dry grain? It cannot until the 
starch in the grain is turned to sugar. 
9. Barley, as you have learned, is a seed. 32 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
When it sprouts, its starch will turn to sugar. 
This sugar feeds the little roots and leaves of 
the new plant, until it is strong enough to 
get its food from the moist earth and air. 
10. To make beer the brewer wets the grain, 
and keeps it warm and moist until a little 
sprout starts on each grain. If you should 
chew such a grain you would find it sweet, 
because its starch has turned to sugar. The 
brewer next heats it, so that all the little 
sprouts are killed. It is then called malt. 
n. He mashes or grinds this malt, and 
soaks out its sugar in a good deal of water. 
This makes a sweet liquid. The brewer next 
puts in yeast, which is one kind of ferment. 
The yeast quickly changes part of the sugar 
to alcohol. The alcohol stays in the beer and 
makes it a poison that no one should drink. 
Hops are sometimes put in. They give the 
beer a bitter taste. 
12. There is no alcohol in barley. This grain 
is sometimes made into pearl-barley to thicken 
soup. In some countries people grind barley 
and make it into bread and barley-cakes. 
When used in such ways it is a good food. 33 
PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
But when barley or other grain is made 
into beer, it is worse than wasted. There is 
enough alcohol in such beer to poison who- 
ever drinks it. 
13. It is the nature of beer to make those 
who drink it want more and more beer. It is 
also the nature of beer to make its drinkers 
dull, stupid, and wicked. 
14. A boy who drinks beer will not be able 
to learn his lessons as well as one who never 
takes it at all. The beer will make his mind 
stupid. It will make him careless about doing 
right, and sooner or later it may lead him to 
do some very wicked deed. 
Home-made Beer. 
15. People sometimes boil roots, barks, and 
herbs in water, and when this cools they add 
sugar and yeast, and then let it stand in a 
warm place. In a little while froth and 
bubbles of gas will come to the top. Then we 
may know that the sugar in the liquid is 
being turned to alcohol. This is called " home- 
made beer." It is not a safe drink, because it 
has alcohol in it. 34 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
Distillation. 
16. You have learned that it is the nature 
of the alcohol in beer, wine or cider to make 
those who drink it want more. To get the 
drinks that contain more alcohol, men heat 
cider, wine or beer until the alcohol in them 
turns to vapor. That vapor looks like steam, 
and rises above the heated liquor as steam 
rises above boiling water. 
17. You have seen steam puff out from the 
spout of a tea-kettle. If you tried to catch 
the steam in a cold cup, you saw that it turned 
to drops of water. In the same way the vapor 
that passes out of the pipe of a kettle, when 
an alcoholic liquor is over the fire, will turn to 
drops of a liquor very strong with alcohol. In 
this manner brandy, rum, whisky and gin are 
made from such weaker liquors as wine, cider, 
and beer. 
18. The process of making stronger alco- 
holic liquors in this way, from weaker ones, 
is called distillation. Brandy, rum, whisky, 
and gin are about one-half alcohol. They are 
called distilled liquors. They ruin those who 
drink them more quickly than beer, wine, or PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
35 
cider. But the drinker of beer, wine, or cider 
often gets just as much alcohol, because he 
drinks so much more. 
Alcoholic Appetite. 
19. If you were asked what is one of the 
first bad things about a little alcohol in any 
liquor you would certainly answer, - " The 
power a little alcohol has to make a person 
want to drink more, until he drinks enough 
to ruin himself.1' The person who cares so 
much for beer, cider, wine, or any other 
liquor that contains alcohol, and who keeps 
on drinking it, making himself stupid and 
drunken with it, is called a drunkard. 
20. An appetite for alcoholic drinks is very 
hard to resist, and leads to sure ruin. Wine, 
brandy, cider or any liquor of this kind should 
never be put into puddings, sauces, jellies, pies, 
or any kind of food. It may lead those who 
take them to like alcoholic liquors. 
ii 
Tobacco. 
1. Nearly all boys and girls have seen plants 
growing. Some plants, like the cabbage or 36 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
lettuce, are good for food. Some others, like 
the grasses, we cannot eat, but they are good 
for horses, cows, and other animals. Still other 
plants contain poisons that will hurt or kill 
us if we take them. 
2. Tobacco is a plant that contains a very 
strong poison. The leaves of the tobacco-plant 
when dried are unwisely used by many people 
for chewing, smoking, and sometimes snuffing. 
3. Cigars and cigarettes are made from the 
dried leaves of the tobacco-plant. 
4. A little baby was once killed by breath- 
ing the air in a tobacco manufactory, where 
its mother worked at making cigars. Grown 
men and women are often at first made sick 
by breathing the poisoned air of such places. 
After a time it does not make them so sick, 
but it slowly injures their health. 
5. Perhaps you may ask, does not the poison 
in the tobacco harm those who smoke or chew 
it ? It does harm them, and often very much. 
Chewing and smoking tobacco gives people 
heart-disease. It poisons their nerves and 
makes their minds stupid and dull, besides 
injuring them in other ways. PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
37 
6. It often makes boys and others who use 
it want to drink alcoholic liquors. 
7. It may seem strange that people will use 
a plant that does so much harm. But they 
do not know or stop to think how bad tobacco 
is when they begin using it. When they have 
formed the habit of using tobacco, it is very 
difficult to stop. 
Opium. 
8. You have all seen poppies growing in 
the flower-bed. You remember how the bright 
petals of the poppy-flower fall off after a time, 
and the seed-pod is left on the stalk. 
9. This seed-pod contains a milky juice that 
will come out if the pod is cut in the right 
way. This juice when dry is called opium. 
Opium, like alcohol and tobacco, is a poison 
that deadens the nerves. For this reason the 
doctor sometimes gives sick people opium to 
quiet pain. It deadens their nerves, and they 
do not feel the pain. 
10. Opium is a dangerous poison. It may 
deaden the nerves so that the person who 
takes it will go to sleep and never wake up. 38 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
11. If a person takes opium many times he 
soon begins to want to take more opium. In 
this way an appetite for it may be formed. 
If a person then yields to such an appetite 
and keeps on taking opium, it will soon do 
great injury to his health and to his mind. 
12. Soothing syrups that are given to babies 
to make them sleep contain opium. It is a 
great wrong to deaden the baby's brain and 
nerves with opium. When he grows up he 
will not have so good a brain as he would 
have had, if the mother or nurse had given 
him good care, - but no soothing syrup. 
QUESTIONS. 
I. - 1, 2. What alcoholic liquor is macle of grapes? 3. How 
much alcohol is there in wine? 4, 5. Home-made wine? 6, 7. 
From what is beer made? 8, 9, 10. How is the grain treated? 
11, 12. How does the alcohol get in the beer? 13, 14. What is the 
effect of beer drinking? 15. What is home-made beer? 16. How 
are the stronger liquors made? 17, 18. What is distillation? 19. 
What is alcoholic appetite? 20. Why should liquors never be 
used in cooking? 
II. - 1. From what do men get tobacco? 2. What does the 
tobacco-plant contain? 4, 5. How does tobacco poison act? 6, 7. 
What is the effect of the tobacco habit? 8, 9. What is opium? 
10, 11. What is the effect of opium poisoning? 12. What are 
soothing syrups ? Their dangerous effects ? PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
39 
CHAPTER VI. 
DIGESTION. 
I 
1. What becomes of all the food you eat,- 
bread, butter, pudding, potatoes, apples, sugar, 
- where do they all go to ? There is nothing 
in you that looks like any of those things, 
and yet they have all gone into your body. 
But when you eat them they are changed. 
2. You know how blood looks. Can you 
believe that nearly all the food you eat be- 
comes blood in a few hours? It is a wonder- 
ful change! If you should visit a paper-mill 
you might see logs of wood going in at one 
door, and in another part of the building you 
would see piles of white paper which has been 
made from the logs. This is remarkable, and 
yet it is not so strange as the making of blood 
from food. But that is what our bodies are 
doing all the time. 40 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
3. The change which prepares the food to 
become blood is called digestion. When you 
swallow your food, you think nothing more 
about it if you are well. It is like dropping 
a nickel into a tin savings' bank, or pouring 
water into a pipe which carries it away, you 
-Gullet. 
Stomach, 
don't know where. But the body is not like 
an empty box. Let us try to follow the food 
in our thought. 
4. From the mouth it passes back into the 
throat and is swallowed. The act of swallow- 
ing carries it down through the gullet into 
the stomach. The gullet is a tube about nine 
inches long. The stomach is a kind of soft, 
fleshy bag. You find out just where it is 
when you have a stomach-ache. PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
41 
5. At the further end of the stomach we 
find a small tube again. This tube is very 
long, - as much as twenty feet long, and 
extends to the lower end of the trunk of the 
body. Of course such a long tube could not 
be inside of the body without being coiled up, 
like a bunch of rope. This long tube, twisted 
up in a mass, we call the intestines or bowels. 
The bowels are below the stomach. Throat, 
gullet, stomach, and bowels make one long 
canal in which the wonderful work of diges- 
tion is done. 
6. Digestion begins in the mouth for all 
solid food. The first act is to chew it. This 
ought to be very well done. The work of the 
stomach is much harder when the food is 
swallowed in lumps. 
ii 
The Teeth. 
1. It is the business of these white strong 
teeth to do two things. The front teeth, which 
are sharp, have to bite off the food. The back 
teeth, which are broad, have to grind it. 
2. A little baby has no teeth at first that 
you can see. But down in his gums there 42 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
are some all ready to grow out when the time 
comes. When the first little one peeps out, 
everybody is pleased, for it shows that the 
baby is growing. It does not come until he 
is five or six months old, and perhaps not till 
he is eight or nine months old. Then one 
follows another until he is two or three years 
old, when he has all his first set. 
3. At seven years of age the first teeth begin 
to come out, and the second set take their 
6th fl 
z/ezznl 
Molar 1 
56*. 
\year 
I Molar 
place. One after another the old ones are 
lost, and the new ones appear until he is 
twelve or fourteen years old. Even then the 
"wisdom teeth" have not come. 
4. It is very foolish to crack nuts with the 
teeth, or bite hard candy. If the first teeth 
break, it may be a long time before new ones PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
43 
come. If the second teeth are broken, no new 
ones will ever come. 
5. The teeth ought to be cleaned every day 
with a cloth or tooth-brush. If the teeth are 
not kept clean, they are more likely to decay. 
Decayed teeth look bad, and they are a cause 
of ill-health. 
6. After the food is well chewed, it is swal- 
lowed and goes down into the stomach. Here 
it mixes with a watery fluid called the gastric 
juice. The stomach prepares this juice on 
purpose to help change the food into blood. 
The mouthfuls of bread and potato that you 
swallow are mixed and dissolved in this gas- 
tric fluid, until the whole is about like thick- 
ened soup. From the stomach some of the 
food passes into the bowels, and the work goes 
on there until it is all ready to become blood. 
7. Then it soaks into the walls of the bow- 
els or intestines and into the little blood-vessels 
that are there, and is carried along with the 
rest of the blood through the body. 
8. Some things are easily digested and some 
are difficult to digest. A dog can digest bones, 
and a bird can digest buds, that our stomachs 44 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
cannot digest. When we eat things that we 
are unable to digest, it makes us feel bad, and 
we cannot work or play as well. 
9. It is bad for the stomach to have too 
much rich food, like pie and cake. Too much 
candy is very bad for the stomach. It is 
much better to give up the pleasure of eating 
such things than to have a headache, and to 
feel no appetite for the next meal. 
10. One way to keep good health is to eat 
only plain and wholesome food. Plain bread, 
meat and potatoes make good food for chil- 
dren and grown people as well. 
11. We must not eat too much even of plain 
food. If we keep our stomachs full all the 
time, they will get tired out. They need rest 
as much as our legs do. It is better to eat at 
regular times and not to make the stomach 
work every moment. Do not eat very fast. 
You cannot chew your food properly if you 
do. Then it will not be as well digested. 
Effects of Alcohol and Tobacco on Digestion. 
12. If you should get a drop of alcohol into 
your eye, it would make your eye smart and 45 
PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
look red. The tender lining of the stomach 
is made red and inflamed, and often made sore 
by drinking liquors that contain alcohol, such 
as beer, wine or cider. 
13. When these drinks do not make the 
stomach sore, they often weaken the gastric 
juice, so that it cannot act upon the food as 
it should. 
14. Men who smoke or chew tobacco often 
lose their appetite for good food. This is be- 
cause the tobacco weakens the stomach, and 
makes it unable to digest food as it should. 
Such people are seldom as strong, and are 
not apt to have as good health, as those who 
do not injure themselves in this way. If you 
wish your stomach to keep well and do its 
work well, you should never use tobacco. 
QUESTIONS. 
I. - 1, 2. What becomes of our food? 3, 4, 5. What are the 
organs of digestion? 6. How may we aid digestion? 
IL - 1. What is the use of the teeth? 2, 3. When do the teeth 
first appear? 4, 5. How should we care for the teeth? 6, 7. How 
is the food changed to blood? 8, 9, 10. What is the best food for 
children? 11. Give some rules for eating? 12, 13, 14. What are 
the effects of alcohol and tobacco on the stomach? 46 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
CHAPTER VII. 
THE BLOOD. 
I 
1. Our bodies contain a good deal of blood. 
It is in almost every part of the body. If 
you prick yourself or cut yourself anywhere, 
the blood will run. 
2. Blood gives the skin its healthy color. It 
makes your cheeks rosy and your lips red. 
When there is not enough blood in the body 
the face is pale, and we see at once that the 
person is not well. 
3. No one can be well who does not have 
enough blood. No one can be well whose 
blood is not pure. The blood is one of the 
most important parts of the body. Life can- 
not go on without it. Health and strength 
depend upon it. 
4. In some places where it seldom rains, 
people have to bring water to the fields and PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
47 
gardens through ditches. If anything happens 
to stop the supply of water, the grain and 
flowers will dry up and die. 
5. The same thing will happen in the body 
if anything stops the flowing of the blood. 
The blood waters all parts of the body, and 
carries food to all parts. 
The Blood-Vessels. 
6. Although the blood will always run if 
you cut your flesh, it is all contained in tubes 
which we call blood-vessels. Some of these are 
large, and some are smaller than a hair; and 
the body is so full of them that when you cut 
yourself anywhere you cut a blood-vessel, and 
that lets the blood flow out. 
7. If you live in a city, or a large village, 
you have water brought into your house by 
pipes. There are small pipes going to the dif- 
ferent rooms, and these come from a large 
pipe in the cellar. This pipe comes from a 
greater pipe in the street, which comes from 
the reservoir. 
8. The blood-vessels in the body are some- 
what like these pipes. From the heart two 48 
UNION SENINS, NO. 1. 
large tubes go out as pipes do from a reser- 
voir. From these come smaller tubes, and so 
the tubes keep dividing and growing smaller 
until finally the blood is carried into every 
nook and corner of the body, just as the 
water is carried into every house. 
9. But these water-pipes are very different 
from the blood-vessels. When the water enters 
the houses, it is drawn off and emptied into 
other water-pipes and never goes back to the 
reservoir. But the blood which flows from the 
heart to face, arms, hands, feet, and all other 
parts of the body, flows directly back again, 
not through the same tubes, but through other 
tubes called veins. 
10. Arteries carry blood away from the 
heart; veins carry blood back to the heart. 
So the blood goes around and around, and 
makes what we call circulation. 
Effects of Alcohol. 
11. The healthy blood-vessels are tough and 
elastic, in order to hold the right amount of 
blood as it moves through them to all parts 
of the body. Alcohol weakens the blood-ves- PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
49 
seis; it makes them stretch, and that lets too 
much blood go where it ought not. 
12. Perhaps you have heard men talk about 
taking a drink on a cold day " to warm them 
up." The drink they take causes all the little 
blood-vessels which lie just under the skin to 
stretch so much, that they hold more blood 
than they ought. 
13. Then the warm blood comes rushing into 
them and makes the skin feel warm. The 
man thinks he is warmer; but he soon finds 
that he is growing colder. Why? Because 
the blood cools off faster when it is in the 
blood-vessels, near the outside of the body, 
than when it is in those deeper down in the 
flesh. 
14. Alcohol makes people who drink it colder 
instead of warmer. A person who takes a 
drink of this kind, and goes out in the cold, 
will freeze sooner than one who goes out 
without such a drink. 
15. Alcohol often makes oily or fatty spots 
form in the blood-vessels. In these and other 
ways, any drink that contains alcohol may 
injure the blood-vessels. 50 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
II 
The Heart. 
1. The heart is in that part of the body 
which is called the chest. 
It is behind the breast-bone 
and ribs, on the left side. 
If you put your ear close 
to some one's breast you can 
hear the heart beat. If you 
watch the bare breast close- 
ly, you can see a little move- 
ment of the skin on the left 
side of the chest every time the heart beats. 
2. It is always beating. It does not stop 
when we are asleep or resting. It throbs, 
throbs, as long as we live. When it stops 
death comes. 
3. If you examine the heart of an ox or of 
a sheep you will find that it is not solid but 
hollow. You will find, too, that it is divided 
by partitions into four chambers. It is made 
of lean meat called muscle, and when it beats 
it shuts up close just as your fist closes when PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
51 
you squeeze something. The heart of a man 
is quite like a sheep's heart. 
What Keeps the Blood Moving. 
4. The heart keeps the blood moving. I 
said that the heart is something like a reser- 
voir. But it is more like the bulb of a syringe. 
When you squeeze the bulb the water flows 
through the tube. So when the heart squeezes 
itself, the blood flows out through the arteries 
and back through the veins. As long as the 
heart beats the blood keeps moving. 
Alcohol and Tobacco. 
5. If the heart were made of fat, instead 
of lean meat or muscle, it would not have 
strength to squeeze out the blood and send 
it to all parts of the body. When people 
drink beer, wine, or other alcoholic drinks, 
some of the lean meat or muscle of the heart 
often becomes changed to fat. This greatly 
weakens the heart. 
6. Drinks containing alcohol also make the 
heart weak by causing it to beat faster than 
it should, thus tiring it with overwork. 
7. Boys who use tobacco seldom have sound 52 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
hearts. A doctor once examined thirty-eight 
boys who smoked. He found that thirty-two 
of those boys had unhealthy hearts. They all 
gave up their tobacco, and at the end of a year 
were entirely well. 
Why must the Blood keep moving? 
8. You learned that the food is digested in 
the stomach and bowels. But all parts of the 
body must have some of this food. The head 
wants its share, and the arms want theirs, and 
even the fingers and toes must have theirs. 
So the blood has to carry it to them. If it 
did not they would starve. 
9. In our vast country steam-cars and steam- 
boats are moving all the time to carry food 
and other things from one part of the coun- 
try to another. The wheat that grows in the 
West is carried to the East. The oranges and 
sugar that grow in the South are carried to 
the North. So the blood carries food and other 
things to nourish each part of the body. PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
53 
Ill 
Pure Blood. 
1. Since the blood has to carry food to every 
part of the body, it is very important that it 
should be pure. You would not buy meat 
from a butcher whose meat was mixed with 
dirt. You would not buy vegetables from a 
grocer who had poisonous weeds mixed with 
his greens. Neither do you want your muscles 
to be supplied with blood that has impurities 
or poisons in it. In order to keep your blood 
pure, several things are necessary. 
(а) You must have good wholesome food. 
Food is digested and taken into the blood. If 
the food is not good the blood cannot be good. 
If your food is too rich, .or if it is not well 
cooked, the stomach gets tired and cannot do 
its work well. Then the blood is not properly 
supplied with food. If you eat too much the 
blood gets more food than it needs, and that 
causes sickness. 
(б) You must exercise. Running and play- 
ing make the blood flow freely through the 
body. Pools of water that stand still gener- 54 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
ally get foul and slimy, while running water 
keeps clear. The blood also must be kept 
active or it will not keep pure. It is bad for 
children to sit still for a long time. 
(c) You must have plenty of fresh air. The 
blood needs good air. We take it in when 
we breathe. If the air is bad the blood will 
be bad. The best air is the air out-of-doors, 
and when you play out-of-doors you breathe 
in a good deal of it. 
Effects of Alcohol on the Blood. 
2. When cider, beer, brandy, or any such 
liquor is drank, the alcohol in it quickly soaks PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
55 
through the blood-vessels into the blood. It 
there mixes itself through all the blood it finds 
in the body. 
3. Wise doctors tell us that if only a little 
alcohol is taken, it injures the blood. Even 
so little as that in a single glass of beer, wine 
or cider will do a little harm. More alcohol 
will harm the blood more. 
4. The blood of the wine, beer or cider 
drinker has to carry alcohol as well as food 
to the head, heart, and every part of his body. 
It is very wrong to give the blood poisons 
to carry to the nerves and the bones and 
muscles when they need food. 
QUESTIONS. 
I. - 1, 2, 3. What is the use of the blood? 4, 5. Why must it 
go to all parts of the body ? 6, 7. What are the blood-vessels ? 8, 
9. What is their use? 10. Arteries. Veins. 11, 12. What is the 
effect of alcohol on the blood-vessels ? 13, 14. The effect of alcohol 
on the warmth of the body? 
II. - 1. What is the heart? 2, 3. How is it divided? 4. What 
keeps the blood moving? 5, 6, 7. Effect of alcohol on the heart? 
8, 9. Why must the blood keep moving? 
III. - 1. Why must the blood be kept pure? How is the blood 
kept pure? Why do we need exercise ? Fresh air? Good food? 
2, 3, 4. Effects of alcohol on the blood ? 56 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
CHAPTER VIII. 
BREATHING.-VENTILATION. 
I 
1. A fish cannot live in the air. Take it ont 
of the water and it gasps and dies. A dog or 
a bird or a man cannot live in the water. Air 
is as necessary for ns as water is for the fish. 
2. You cannot see the air, but you can feel 
it. When you hold your hand in the wind 
the air presses against it, as the water does 
when you put your hand in the brook or 
under the spout. 
3. Air is a good deal like water. If we 
could see it we should see streams of air and 
waves of air and still pools of air, just as we 
see streams and waves and pools of water. 
4. Usually the air flows gently across the 
fields and through the streets and into and 
out of the windows. But sometimes it rushes 
along, like a roaring river, and blows down 
trees and houses. PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
57 
Why is Air necessary to us? 
5. We must have it to breathe, you answer. 
That is true. Fifteen or twenty times in every 
minute we take in and breathe out air. We 
cannot stop breathing. Even when we are 
asleep we keep on breathing. When the breath 
is stopped for five minutes the person is dead, 
and will never breathe again. We can do 
without food or drink for days, but we must 
have air all the time. 
6. But we have not yet answered the ques- 
tion why we must breathe. It would be very 
convenient if we were not obliged to. There 
is some work in breathing. If we did not 
have to breathe, we should not drown under 
water, and would not be injured by the bad 
air so many people have to live in. 
7. There is something in the air that our 
bodies must have constantly. That something 
is called oxygen. When we breathe, the oxy- 
gen goes into our blood and the blood carries 
it all through the body, and distributes it to 
each part. At the same time waste matter 
from the blood goes out into the air. 58 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
II 
The Parts with which we Breathe. 
1. We can see the chest swell, and we can 
feel the air passing into our nostrils or mouths 
when we breathe, although we cannot see it. 
2. The nose is the proper breathing passage. 
Some form a habit of keeping the mouth open 
and breathing through it. This is bad. It 
makes the throat dry, and sometimes sore, 
to take in great mouthfuls of cold air. The 
way through the nose is narrow, and the air is 
warmed and moistened in passing through it. 
3. People who sleep with their mouths open 
snore, and, besides drying their own throats, 
they disturb their neighbors. 
4. From the throat the air goes down into 
the voice-box. This is so low down that you 
cannot see it when you look into the mouth. 
But you can feel it, by putting your finger on 
the front of your throat. In men it is a hard 
lump which is called "Adam's apple." 
5. In the voice-box the air passes through an 
opening between two white bands which make 
the sound. It then goes down the windpipe. PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
59 
6. The windpipe has little hoops of gristle 
in its walls to keep it open. For if it should 
close, our breathing would be stopped. 
7. Behind the breast- 
bone the windpipe di- 
vides into two pipes or 
branches. One of these 
goes to the right lung 
and the other goes to 
the left lung. 
8. In the lungs these 
pipes divide and divide 
into smaller branches, 
until the whole of both 
lungs is full of them. 
At the end of every 
tiny twig is a little sac, called an air-sac. 
9. Large blood-vessels from the heart also 
go into each lung. They too divide and divide 
into smaller branches, until the very smallest 
lie on the little air-sacs. 
10. Now you can see how oxygen from the 
air gets into the blood. The air goes into the 
lungs and gets into the air-sacs. The blood 
goes into the lungs and gets to the tiny 60 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
blood-vessels which lie on the air-sacs. And 
the walls, between the blood and the air, are 
so thin that the oxygen goes straight through 
from the air into the blood. And the waste 
matter comes from the blood into the air-sacs 
and is carried out in the breath. 
11. Did you ever see a pair of bellows? The 
chest and lungs are very much like the bel- 
lows. When you pull the handles of the 
bellows apart, the air rushes into them. So 
when your chest grows large, the air rushes 
into the lungs. When the chest grows small 
again the air rushes out, just as it rushes out 
of the bellows when you press the handles 
together. 
12. What becomes of the oxygen in the 
blood? The blood contains many little red 
particles which we can see with a microscope, 
but not without it. These little red particles 
convey the oxygen. They take it up in the 
lungs and then go floating off in the blood to 
all parts of the body, and when they reach 
the proper place they give it up. So the flesh 
and skin and bones and all other parts get 
the oxygen which they need. PH YSIOLOG Y AND HE A L TH. 
61 
Ill 
Effects of Alcohol and Tobacco on the Lungs. 
1. Have you ever smelled the breath of one 
who had been drinking beer, wine, or some 
such liquor ? If you have, you remember that 
his breath smelled so bad that you wanted to 
turn your head away. This bad odor came 
from the lungs. The alcohol had passed from 
his stomach into the blood, which carried it 
into the blood-vessels in the lungs. The heat 
of the body had turned the alcohol to vapor. 
This vapor passed through the little air-sacs in 
the lungs, and was breathed out with other 
waste matter. 
2. The lungs have enough to do to purify 
the blood of the waste matters that come to 
them when no poison has been drank. 
3. Alcohol thickens and hardens the thin 
walls of the delicate air-sacs in the lungs. 
The waste matter from the blood cannot then 
pass through as easily into the air-sacs to be 
breathed out. For this reason, the man who 
drinks beer or wine or cider or any other alco- 
holic liquor cannot have as pure blood as the 
man who never touches any of these drinks. 62 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
4. When the walls of the air-sacs are thus 
hardened by alcohol, pure air cannot as well 
pass into the blood-vessels of the lungs. This 
makes the lungs weak, and more likely to be- 
come diseased. The man who has such lungs 
will be more apt to be ill, after taking a slight 
cold, than a person who has pure blood and 
sound lungs. 
5. The lungs need pure air. A man is not 
taking pure air into his lungs when he is 
breathing tobacco smoke. The smoke is an 
impurity, and it makes the blood impure. 
Tobacco irritates the lungs, the throat, and 
the other air-passages leading to the lungs. 
IV 
Ventilation. 
1. It is not a good thing to breathe another 
person's breath. It has not enough oxygen, 
and has too much waste matter. We should 
not take into our lungs the waste matter which 
some one else has just breathed out. 
2. When a good many people are in a room 
which is shut up tight, they soon begin to do 
that very thing. The air that they breathe 63 
PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
is mixed with all the rest of the air in the 
room, and soon all are breathing bad air. In 
this way the air in many churches, concert- 
halls, and theaters becomes so bad that it is 
very unhealthy. It makes people feel drowsy, 
or it gives them headaches. 
3. If the school-room is not built so that 
fresh air can be constantly coming in, the 
doors and windows on opposite sides of the 
room should be opened for a moment every 
hour during cold weather, to let the bad air 
out and the fresh air in. While this is being 
done, extra heat should be turned on to warm 
the air coming in, and then the children 
should march or take exercise, in some quick, 
active way, to prevent their taking cold. 
4. When several people sleep in the same 
room, without having doors or windows open, 
the air soon becomes bad. A great deal of 
sickness comes from breathing impure air. 
5. Fresh air is the finest blood purifier. 
When we run and play, the blood flows fast 
and we breathe fast, so we take in a great 
deal of oxygen. % That is Nature's way of 
keeping us well. 64 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
6. Ventilation means bringing fresh, pure 
air into rooms, and driving out the bad air. 
If we lived out-of-doors all the time, we should 
not have to think about ventilation. 
7. When a room is shut up tight, no air 
can get in or out, except the little that leaks 
through cracks. If you open only one window 
or door a little way, it is not always enough. 
There must be one place for the air to come 
in and another for it to go out. 
8. It is best for every one, who is well 
enough, to sleep with a window open in winter 
and summer. Those who take cold when the 
window is open must have doors open. An 
open fire-place is a help to good ventilation. 
I. -1-4. How does the air resemble water? 5. Why is the air 
necessary to us? 7. What is in the air that we need constantly? 
II. - 1-3. What is the proper breathing passage? Why? 4, 5. 
Where does the air go from the throat? 6, 7. Describe the wind- 
pipe? 8, 9. Describe its branches? 10, 11. How does the oxygen 
get into the blood? 12. What does the oxygen do in the blood? 
III. - 1, 2. What are the effects of alcohol on the lungs? 3, 4. 
How does it weaken them ? 5. What is the effect of tobacco ? 
IV. - 1, 2. What is the need of ventilation? 3. How should 
school-rooms be ventilated ? 4, 5. Sleeping-rooms ? 6-8. Give some 
rules for ventilation ? 
QUESTIONS. PH YSIOLOG Y AND HE A L TH. 
65 
CHAPTER IX. 
THE BONES AND JOINTS. 
I 
1. A skeleton is not a pleasant 
thing to look at, but it is a very 
important portion of the living 
body. It is the framework that 
holds together all other parts. 
If we had no such hard frame 
we could not stand up or walk. 
2. Bone is hard, and very 
strong. The bones are fastened 
together at the joints by tough 
bands, called ligaments. They 
are covered over by flesh and 
skin. 
3. Some parts of the body 
are so tender that they must be 
surrounded with bone, in order 
to prevent their being injured. 
The brain is one of those parts. We could not 
bear to have the brain pounded and pressed 66 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
as our flesh often is. So it is carefully put 
away in the skull. The skull is very strong, 
and will bear a hard blow without breaking. 
4. The heart and lungs are protected by the 
ribs which form the chest. 
The Joints. 
5. There are many joints in the body, and 
these are of different kinds. Some joints move 
only forward and backward, like the finger- 
joints. Others move in many ways like the 
shoulder-joint. 
6. Joints in machinery have to be oiled some- 
times, or they will not bend easily. The joints 
in our bodies oil themselves, and they do not 
get stiff until old age comes on, if we are 
in good health. 
7. In the toy-shops are wooden figures, which 
move their limbs and jump or dance when you 
pull the strings attached to them. These are 
like the bony skeleton in our bodies, and the 
strings move them as muscles move the bones. 
Care of the Bones. 
8. The bony frame may be injured in several 
ways. We often see persons who are deformed 67 
PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
by accident. They have had some of their 
bones broken or diseased, and these have not 
healed in the right position. 
9. Others have ungainly figures, for they 
have been careless, and have had awkward 
habits in sitting and standing. If a child 
hangs his head and stoops, instead of stand- 
ing straight, he will be likely to have a round 
back and a hollow chest as he grows up. 
10. We cannot breathe as well with our 
shoulders forward, and our heads drooping, 
as we can when the head is erect and the 
shoulders held back. Whatever hinders our 
breathing is unhealthy. 
11. The human form is noble and graceful. 
But many people are not satisfied with it and 
like to change it. You know how the Chinese 
squeeze the feet of their little girls until they 
are useless stumps. Some Indians press the 
heads of the babies to make them flat. Others 
flatten the noses of their children because they 
think they look better so. 
12. In the United States most people wear 
shoes that are too short or too narrow, and 
are not shaped like the foot. The consequence 68 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
is, that very few grown people have feet that 
are shaped as Nature designed them to be, 
or as an artist makes 
them when he is mak- 
ing a statue. They 
cannot step and walk 
gracefully with feet 
so squeezed and put 
out of shape. Shoes 
should be made to fit 
the foot and give it 
room to move freely. 
This is more impor- 
tant than to have 
them in the fashion. 
13. Many silly young women wear tight 
clothing that pinches their waists, and makes 
them look as if they would break off. This 
kind of a waist looks well in a wasp, but not 
in a woman. Every wise girl wants to be a 
strong, healthy woman, and not a weak, sickly, 
wasp-waisted one. 
14. We cannot be healthy unless the liver, 
stomach, and other organs inside the body 
have room enough. They ought not to be 
Natural and Deformed Shape of Foot. PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
69 
crowded by wearing dresses or coats that are 
too tight about the waist or chest. 
Effects of Alcohol and Tobacco. 
15. If you could have your choice which 
would you rather be, - a large, strong man 
or a small,weak one? A large strong one you 
say at once. Well, then, you should never 
chew or smoke tobacco. Doctors agree that 
the boy who smokes or chews tobacco is very 
liable to stunt his growth and make himself 
weak by it. The bones need good blood when 
they are growing. And no blood can furnish 
good building material for the bone if it is 
poisoned with tobacco or alcohol. 
QUESTIONS. 
I. - 1. What is a skeleten? 2. Bones. How are they fastened 
together? 3, 4. How is the brain protected? The heart? The 
lungs? 5. Joints. Describe their use? 6. How are joints kept in 
condition? 8, 9. How may the bones be injured? 10, 11. What 
are some effects of injury to the bones? 12. How are the feet 
sometimes injured? 13, 14. Effects of tight-dressing. 15. Effects 
of alcohol and tobacco. 70 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
CHAPTER X. 
MOTION. 
I 
1. A man walking one evening by a wood, 
as it began to grow dark, stopped suddenly, 
trembling with fear. He thought he saw a 
bear coming out of the bushes just before him. 
After standing a few minutes he laughed and 
said, " I was mistaken. It is only a stump of 
a tree that I see, and no bear.1' 
2. How did he know that it was not a bear? 
Because he saw that, while he watched it for 
a whole minute, it did not move. A stump or a 
rock or anything without life is still. But liv- 
ing things very seldom keep perfectly still for 
a minute. An animal will move its head or 
its tail or its body just a little perhaps, so that 
you can see that it is alive. It is very hard 
for a child to keep quite still for a half of a 
minute, as you will find if you try it. PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
71 
3. This is a wonderful thing, if you stop to 
think about it, - that you and I and all ani- 
mals can move as we wish. Stones cannot, 
nor can trees. Even an engine cannot move 
unless the engineer makes a fire in it, and 
gets up steam to move it. But we move in 
any way we wish to by our own power. 
4. Nobody knows exactly how we do it, but 
we know something about it. 
5. If you lay your left hand on your right 
arm above the elbow, and then raise your right 
hand toward your shoulder, you will feel the 
flesh of your arm grow hard and swell up. 
6. If the skin were off from your arm you 
would see that the mass of red flesh, which 
has been growing hard and swelling, has at 
one end a white cord fastened to a shoulder- 
bone, and at the other end a cord which is 
fastened to a bone of the arm below the elbow. 
7. This mass of flesh is called a muscle. 
8. What we call lean meat is muscle. The 
trunk of the body is covered with muscles; 
they make the principal part of the arms and 
legs. The skin covers them, but you can feel 
and see them moving under the skin. 72 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
9. Muscles differ in shape. Some are flat, 
and some are round. Nearly all of them end 
in cords or bands, called tendons, and nearly 
all are attached to two different bones. 
10. When the muscle on the front part of 
your arm on which you laid your hand grew 
hard, and swelled up as you bent your elbow, 
it was growing shorter and thicker. It is in 
that way that every muscle moves. It grows 
shorter and thicker. 
11. You have seen a caterpillar making his 
way over the ground. His body grows short 
and thick and then stretches out at full length. 
It is somewhat in that way that a muscle 
grows short and thick. 
12. Now, since each muscle is attached to 
two bones, - one at each end,-what happens 
when the muscle grows shorter? Of course 
the two bones must come nearer together. 
The muscle pulls one bone toward the other. 
13. The muscle on your arm, on which you 
laid your hand, pulls the bone of the arm to 
which it is attached up toward the shoulder, 
where the other end of the muscle is attached. 
14. All the muscles are so placed that there PH YSIOLOG Y A ND HE A L TH. 
73 
is a muscle to pull a bone in one direction, 
and another to pull it in the other direction. 
They work opposite to each other. 
15. There are five hundred muscles, and it 
is by these muscles pulling the bones in dif- 
ferent directions, that we walk and run and 
make all our movements. 
16. We learn to use our muscles soon after 
we are born. This is one of the things a 
baby is doing all day long. He has to use 
a good many muscles when he walks; but 
after he begins to try, he learns in a few days. 
ii 
Exercise. 
1. Muscles grow by exercise. The Creator 
puts it into the hearts of healthy children to 
want to run and play a great deal. That is 
because He wants their muscles to grow and 
be strong and active. 
2. The muscles in the arm of a ball-player 
grow large. So they do in men and women 
who work with their hands. It may not be 
necessary for you to have large muscles, but 
they ought to be well-trained and active. 74 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
3. Sports and games in the open air are 
far better for the health and for the muscles 
than games in the house. 
4. When recess comes, do not sit still and 
read or talk, but go out-of-doors and play. 
5. But do not play too long or too hard. 
Children sometimes do harm to themselves by 
playing until they are too tired, or by trying 
to do things that are too hard for them. 
in 
Effects of Alcohol and Tobacco. 
1. The blood should carry food to the mus- 
cles to make them strong. Good food and PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
75 
plenty of exercise in the open air make your 
muscles strong and healthy for work or play. 
If a person drinks alcoholic liquors his blood 
will carry alcohol, which is a strong poison, to 
all the muscles of his body. Alcohol makes 
the muscles weak and unhealthy. 
2. Alcohol often makes too much fat form 
in the muscles. That weakens them. Beer 
is especially bad for the muscles, because it 
tends to load them with fat. The beer-drinker 
may think the beer is good for him, because 
it makes him grow fat; but he is mistaken. 
It is a flabby and unhealthy fat that makes 
him weaker, not stronger. 
3. The man who has used no beer or other 
alcoholic drinks, but has made his muscles 
strong by good food and exercise, can do a 
better day's work than a fat, heavy beer- 
drinker. When he is ill, his chances of get- 
ting well are better. 
4. Some men think that beer makes them 
strong, but it does not. Workmen cannot do 
as much work when they use beer, or any 
other alcoholic drinks, as when they do not. 
Soldiers cannot march as well when they use 76 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
these drinks. Few men can lift as much after 
taking such a drink as before. 
5. The drinker often boasts of his strength, 
because the alcohol dulls his mind, and he 
does not know how strong or weak he is. 
6. Tobacco makes weak and unsteady mus- 
cles. The boy who smokes or chews tobacco 
often seems to need something to hold him 
up. At school he leans on his desk when he 
stands, and lounges in his seat when he sits. 
He acts as he feels, for the tobacco has made 
his muscles weak. 
7. A boy who wants to be strong and bright 
and active must not poison his blood and his 
muscles with tobacco. 
I. - 1. Is it hard for us to keep still? 2. How can you tell an 
animal from a stump? 3-5. Describe some of our motions. 6-8. 
What are muscles? 9. Their shape. 10, 11. How does a muscle 
move? 12, 13. How are muscles attached to bones? 14, 15. How 
do muscles act in pairs? 16. How do we learn to use our muscles? 
II. - 1, 2. How do muscles grow strong? 3-5. How should 
children improve their muscles? 
HI. - 1, 2. What is the effect of alcohol on the muscles? 3-5. 
How does it weaken them ? 6, 7. The effect of tobacco on the 
muscles. 
QUESTIONS. PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
77 
CHAPTER XI. 
BRAIN AND NERVES. 
I 
1. A workman who was laying bricks on 
a new building dropped one, and it fell on the 
head of a woman who was passing. She sank 
down on the sidewalk, and the people who ran 
to help her up thought at first that she was 
dead. She was pale and limp, and did not 
move. But they soon saw that she breathed, 
and after a while she opened her eyes and 
asked what was the matter? 
2. Can you answer that question ? Of course 
you know that she was struck on the head by 
a brick and was stunned. But what is it to 
be stunned? She was not cut, for she had a 
hat on which protected her. No bones were 
broken. You could not find a bruise, except 
a little swelling on the top of her head. She 
walked home after resting a while. She was 78 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
stunned. That means that her brain was 
shaken and hurt, so that she could not move 
and did not know anything for some time. 
3. The brain, as you know, is in the head. 
By it we know and think and feel and resolve. 
The brain directs the muscles and makes them 
work together. Though all other parts are 
perfect, if the brain stops acting every other 
organ in the body will soon stop. 
4. The skull is the strong, bony box which 
keeps and protects the brain. The brain is 
white and about as hard as new cheese. 
5. In the bottom of the skull is a hole an 
inch wide. It is the largest opening into the 
skull. Through this hole a round cord from 
the back of the brain passes down into a 
canal in the backbone. This is the spinal 
cord. It is white like the brain and of about 
the same hardness. 
6. The backbone protects the spinal cord. 
If the spinal cord is seriously injured, one 
does not lose his senses as when the brain is 
injured, but all the parts below the place of 
injury are paralyzed. The legs cannot move 
and sometimes there is no feeling in them. PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
79 
7. Little white cords or threads come out 
of the brain and go through small holes in 
the skull to the muscles and the skin, and 
also to the eye and ear and nose and tongue. 
Other white threads come from the spinal 
cord and go to all parts of the body. These 
white cords are the nerves. 
8. In a hotel or large private-house there 
are bells and speaking-tubes that go up-stairs 
and down, so that the master of the house, 
sitting in his library, can get a message from 
the kitchen, or send one there without going 
himself. The nerves carry messages to and 
from the brain, which is the ruler of the house 
of life. 
9. If you cut your finger, you are sure to 
cut some of the ends of these nerves. For 
they divide into very small fibers; some of 
them no larger than a spider's thread, and go 
to every part of the skin. The cut nerve car- 
ries a message up to the brain that there is a 
knife down there. The brain sends back the 
message through another nerve to the muscles 
to move the finger; and instantly your finger 
is jerked away from the edge of the knife. 80 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
Effects of Alcohol and Tobacco. 
10. Have you ever heard of a person having 
no feeling in his hand or arm or other part 
of his body ? If his hand should touch a 
hot stove, or a needle should be sticking into 
him, he would not feel it. That is because 
something is the matter with his nerves. 
11. Sometimes the nerves that should guide 
the muscles to move become deadened, and 
then the person cannot walk or move his 
limbs. The nerves are sometimes deadened 
by poisons that people take into their bodies. 
The alcohol in wine or beer is one of the 
poisons that deadens the nerves. Wine will 
sometimes make a man stagger when he 
walks. Why? Because the alcohol in it dead- 
ens the nerves and brain so that they cannot 
make his muscles move properly. 
12. You may have noticed that the hands of 
the drinking man often tremble. He cannot 
hold a glass of water steadily. He would take 
a long time to thread a needle. This is because 
he has deadened his nerves and brain again 
and again with alcohol, and made them unfit PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
81 
to control the muscles. At last they become 
unable to hold his muscles steady at any time. 
If he should stop drinking entirely, he might 
in time be well again. 
13. Two men are working side by side in a 
watch factory. They need very steady nerves 
to guide their fingers in doing their fine and 
delicate work. One drinks beer, the other does 
not, but drinks water or milk. The fingers of 
the beer-drinker are quite unsteady, because 
his nerves and brain are partly deadened with 
alcohol. He is made dull and stupid by the 
alcohol the beer contains, and he cannot do 
as good work as the other man. The water 
and milk which the other man drinks do not 
deaden his senses or make his brain stupid. 
Water and milk feed his brain, and make his 
nerves steady and strong to guide the muscles 
in his hands. Where this man succeeds, the 
beer-drinker fails. 
14. The boy who drinks beer, wine or cider 
will not be able to throw the ball in a game 
with so steady an aim, or to do anything as 
well as he might have done, if he drank no 
liquor that contained alcohol. 82 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
II 
Care of the Brain. 
1. Everything that is healthful is good for 
the brain. Good food helps to make a good 
brain. Food or drink that hurts the stomach 
hurts the brain. 
2. The brain cannot keep working all the 
time as the heart does. It gets tired. When 
night comes, it needs to go to sleep for eight 
hours. Sleep is the rest of the brain. 
3. Children commonly like to sit up late; 
and grown people often take less sleep than 
they need. Children need more sleep than 
grown people,-they should go to bed at a 
regular hour, and that an early one. 
Effects of Alcohol on the Brain. 
4. There are many blood-vessels in the brain, 
and much blood passes through them to feed 
the brain. Alcohol makes the blood-vessels 
stretch, and then too much blood flows to the 
brain. 
5. Whenever a man takes a glass of beer 
or other liquor that has alcohol in it, the 
blood carries the alcohol to his brain. PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
83 
6. If this alcohol were like water, it would 
not harm the brain, for the brain needs water. 
But alcohol is a sharp, biting poison. It will 
shrink the brain and do it much other harm. 
The brain was made to think with, but no 
person can think so well when his brain is 
shrunken with alcohol. 
7. With the brain we think about what is 
right or wrong. With the brain we think 
kind and loving thoughts of our parents and 
friends. A person whose brain is shrunken 
with alcohol will not be apt to care what he 
does or says, or for the friends he ought to 
love. The poison, alcohol, has taken away 
his power to think what he ought to do. 
8. A man poisons his brain a little, if he 
takes only the alcohol there is in a little beer 
or cider. When he takes enough to shrink 
and harden his brain until he does not know 
what he is about, he is poisoned still more. 
9. By ruining the brain alcohol ruins the 
mind. A man who has been drinking usually 
talks foolishly. His good sense is gone, because 
his brain is poisoned. He is sometimes very 
cruel. 84 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
10, You have heard of men who are put in 
prison for doing bad deeds. Nine out of every 
ten of these men were led to do these bad 
deeds by drinking some alcoholic liquor. This 
shrunk and hardened their brains, until they 
did not know or care what they did. 
11. Tobacco is also a poison that deadens the 
brain. Boys who use tobacco are apt to have 
stupid brains, and they do not usually learn 
their lessons as well. They do not become as 
wise men as the boys who never use tobacco. 
QUESTIONS. 
I. - 1, 2. What is the effect of a severe blow on the head? 3. 
What is the brain ? 4-6. Describe the skull. The backbone. The 
spinal cord. The nerves. 8, 9. How do the nerves carry mes- 
sages ? 10, 11. Tell what alcohol does to the nerves. 12-14. How 
does it weaken their action ? 
II. - 1. How is the brain kept healthy? 2. Why do we need 
sleep? 3. What are good rules for children? 4-6. What is the 
effect of alcohol on the brain ? 7, 8. On the morals ? 9, 10. On 
the character? 11. What is the effect of tobacco on the brain? PH YSIOLOG Y AND HE A L TH. 
85 
CHAPTER XII. 
THE SKIN. 
I 
1. The skin is a beautiful covering for the 
body. It is smooth and delicate, but firm and 
strong. The red blood in the fine blood-vessels 
in the skin gives it a rosy tinge that is very 
attractive. It fits wonderfully well, and much 
better than the gloves or clothes that you 
wear over it. In youth it has no wrinkles, 
but is smooth everywhere and yet in a well 
person it is never tight. A new jacket or 
gown often pulls under the arms, so that you 
cannot move your limbs freely. But the skin 
never hinders your movements. 
2. After we have worn it a good while - 
fifty or sixty years - it does not fit as well. 
We shrink away from it, and it wrinkles. 
But this seldom happens to children. 
3. The skin keeps the body warm. It is not 
sufficient for this purpose in cold weather, 86 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
though the cows and horses and dogs get 
along very well without clothes. Their skins 
are thickly coated with hair, and hair is an 
excellent protection against cold. 
The Hair and Nails. 
4. Hair grows from our skin also. Not only 
on the top of the head, but on the whole sur- 
face there is hair. Over most of the body it 
is so short and fine that it is scarcely seen. 
Nature has given man a mind which makes 
him capable of clothing himself. But to her 
humbler children, the dogs and other animals, 
she furnishes a warm outer covering. 
5. The nails, too, grow from the skin. They 
are little plates of surface skin, which are hard 
and smooth, and are situated on the backs of 
the ends of the fingers and toes. It is easy 
to see what they are for, if you think a mo- 
ment. Pick up a small object with finger 
and thumb and hold it tight. If there were 
no nails there, and the ends of the fingers 
and thumb were quite round and pulpy, you 
could not pick up things as well or hold them 
as firmly or feel as delicately. PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
87 
6. A hard, rough hand is not so beautiful as 
a soft one. But we know that such a hand 
has done work, and work is honorable. The 
hands of thieves and idlers are not hard. We 
should respect the hand that is marked by 
toil, especially if it has been toil for us. 
7. Besides being a cover for the body, the 
skin has other uses. When we are well, it is 
always a little moist. If you touch the face of 
one sick with a fever, and then of a well per- 
son, you would notice a great difference. One 
is hot and very dry, the other cool and moist. 
Everywhere, on the surface of the skin, are 
little openings called pores. They are so small 
that you cannot see them without a magni- 
fying glass. But there are a great many of 
them, - one or two thousand on a square 
inch. These pores are the openings through 
which perspiration oozes out. It is coming 
out all the time when we are well, but ordi- 
narily it turns into vapor as soon as it reaches 
the surface and we do not see it. When we 
run or exercise hard, it comes faster. 
8. These pores are very small, but we can 
imagine ourselves small enough to look into 88 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
one as a man looks into a well. What should 
we see ? If we had a light we should see a 
tube, not straight, but winding like a cork- 
screw, and going down 
deep into the skin. Now, 
if we followed the tube 
downward, we should see 
that just under the skin 
it was rolled up in a ball, 
and that on the outside 
of this ball many little 
blood-vessels lie in a net- 
work. From these little 
blood-vessels comes the 
water into the tube, and 
so out to the surface. 
As much as a pint of water goes off from the 
body in this way every day. 
9. It makes us cooler to perspire freely, 
for perspiration turns to vapor on the surface 
of the body. But when water turns to vapor, 
it takes away heat from everything near it. 
That is the reason why sprinkling the street 
on a hot day cools the air. So water turning 
to vapor on the skin cools the skin PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
89 
10. The skin is a protection and an orna- 
ment, a warmer and a cooler of the body. 
ii 
Care of the Skin. -Bathing. 
1. It is very important to keep the skin 
in good order. It must be kept clean and 
active. One way of doing this is by bathing. 
2. Of course, if the skin becomes covered 
with dust and uncleanness, the little pores 
will be partly closed. The perspiration can- 
not flow as freely as it should. Moreover, if 
dirt remains in the skin and is mixed with 
perspiration, it makes an unpleasant odor, and 
causes irritation to the skin. 
3. For purposes of cleanliness, the whole 
body should be bathed at least once a week. 
4. Besides making it clean, bathing makes 
the skin active. The cool water and the rub- 
bing quickens the flow of blood through it, 
and makes it softer and more pliable. 
5. For purposes of health and comfort it is 
good to bathe every day. 
6. There is nothing which will do so much 
to prevent colds as a daily bath. We take 90 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
cold, because the skin is too sensitive. It is 
covered with clothing, and often we spend 
our time in warm rooms and the skin cannot 
endure cold air. When a draught strikes us, 
the skin gets chilled. People who live out-of- 
doors a great deal do not get cold as easily 
as those who are shut up in the house. So 
a daily bath makes the skin hardier. A good 
time for a bath is just after rising. 
7. It is pleasant and healthful in the sum- 
mer to bathe in a brook or pond or in the 
sea. But some rules should be observed. 
(а) Never go into the water when very hot. 
It may cause a shock to the system that is 
dangerous. Wait and cool off before you 
plunge in. 
(б) Never go into the water immediately 
after eating. It sometimes stops digestion, 
and causes sickness. 
(c) Do not stay in the water too long. Your 
bath should never last more than half an 
hour, generally much less. 
(d) Do not go in the water more than once 
or twice on the same day. 
8. For those who cannot bathe often, a " dry PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
91 
bath" is a good thing. That means rubbing 
the body thoroughly with a towel or a brush. 
Effects of Alcohol upon the Skin. 
9. A clear skin is beautiful. But you have 
seen faces whose skin was made coarse and 
even loathsome to the sight by intoxicating 
drinks. Red blotches show that their blood- 
vessels have been weakened by alcohol, and 
are always larger than they should be. Sores 
sometimes break out, especially on the drink 
er's nose, which becomes swollen and red. The 
skin of the daily tippler often breaks up into 
dead scales that stop up the openings of the 
little pores, through which the perspiration 
should pass out. 
QUESTIONS. 
I. - 1, 2. Describe the skin. 3. What is its use? 4. The hair. 
5. The nails. Their use. 7. What other uses of the skin? 8, 9. 
Describe the pores. Perspiration. Its use. 
II. -1. How is the skin kept in good order? 2, 3. Need of 
bathing. 4-6. Good effects oi bathing. 7, 8. Give some rules for 
bathing. 9. What is the effect of alcohol on the skin ? 92 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
CHAPTER XIII. 
THE SENSES.-THE EYE.-THE EAR. 
I 
1. By our senses we find out about things 
all around us. We have five senses, -touch, 
taste, smell, sight, and hearing. 
2. We learn a great deal by the sense of 
touch. A baby is eager to touch everything 
he sees,-even the moon. He finds out by 
feeling whether anything is hard or soft, or 
round or fiat, and much beside. People who 
are blind sometimes can do wonderful things 
by feeling. We can feel with every part of 
the outside of the body. 
3. We need to taste only the things we eat, 
so we can taste with the tongue, the mouth, 
and the throat, and with no other part. 
4. We smell with the nose. When we have 
bad colds we cannot smell; and some people 
lose their sense of smell entirely. It is un- PH YSIOL OGY AND HE A L TH. 
93 
fortunate not to be able to smell a rose or a 
field of clover. And it is better to be able to 
smell bad things, if they are near us, for then 
we can remove them or go away from them. 
ii 
The Eye. 
1. The eyes are like windows through which 
our souls look out. Shut your eyes and how 
much is gone; the light and the sky, and the 
fields and the trees, and the faces of your 
friends. Open them again, and all these things 
come back to you. 
2. When we look at anything, a little picture 
of that thing is made in the back part of the 
eye. This picture remains only while we are 
looking. There is always a picture of some- 
thing there, if the eyes are open. The nerves 
of the eye tell the brain what this picture is. 
3. Since our eyes give us so much happi- 
ness, and since they are so necessary to us, 
we ought to be careful of them. You may 
do them harm in several ways. 
(a) One way is by reading or studying with 
a bad light. Children sometimes sit by the 94 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
window and read when the sun is going down. 
They keep on until they can hardly see. This 
is not treating the eyes well. It is tiring them 
and straining them. 
(&) Another bad habit is that of reading 
while lying down. This also makes the eyes 
weak. 
(c) Many children lean over their desks 
when they study, with their faces close to the 
book. This often makes them short-sighted, 
so that after awhile they have to wear glasses 
to see across a room. 
(d) In the evening we should not sit and 
read with a lamp directly before our eyes. It 
should be behind or at one side of us. 
in 
The Ear. 
1. The eye is in plain sight on the face, but 
the hearing part of the ear is deep in the skull. 
The part that we see on the side of the head 
is only the open end of a tube that leads to 
the hearing part. It is like an ear-trumpet. 
The wide end catches the sound and carries 
it in. PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 
95 
2. This outside ear is not made to be pulled, 
and should never be boxed. It should be 
washed with a soft rag on the finger, but no 
one should use hair-pins, or any such things, 
to clean his own ears. It is not safe to put 
them into the ear. At the end of the tube 
of the ear, which is an inch long, is the 
drum-head. This is not much thicker than 
paper, and is stretched across the tube. It 
may be broken by a hard blow on the ear, or 
even by a very loud sound, such as a cannon 
makes when fired near us. 
3. Still further in the skull, just beyond 
the drum-head, is the place where lies the 
nerve of hearing. This is the most important 
part of the ear. The nerve carries to the brain 
the message which the sound brings. 
Effects of Alcohol and Tobacco. 
4. The eye-sight is often injured by the use 
of alcohol and tobacco. Doctors tell us of men 
who were rapidly losing their sight from the 
use of these poisons; but when they stopped 
using them, their eye-sight was soon restored 
again. 96 
UNION SERIES, NO. 1. 
5. Cider, beer, wine, or any liquor that con- 
tains alcohol, deadens the nerves that give us 
the sense of taste. One who drinks any of 
these, or uses tobacco, soon becomes unable 
to taste delicate flavors. 
6. When the vbrain is dulled by alcohol, all 
the senses are dulled also. The person cannot 
hear as quickly, see as clearly, taste, smell or 
feel as keenly as when there is no alcohol in 
his brain, and his nerves are not poisoned 
and blunted by it. 
7. Our senses are designed to bring us much 
pleasure. But one who benumbs them with 
alcohol or tobacco loses far more true pleasure 
than the use of such poisons can give him. 
8. Boys and girls who have good health, 
clear brains, and who are determined to do 
right, have a fortune in themselves. 
QUESTIONS. 
I. - 1. How many senses have we? What are they? 2. The 
sense of touch. 3. Sense of taste. 4. The sense of smell. 
II. -1. The sense of sight. 2. How do we see with the eyes? 
3. Give some rules for the care of the eyes. 
III. - 1. The sense of hearing. 2. How should we care for the 
ear? 3. Describe the inner ear. 4-8. What are the effects of alco- 
hoi and tobacco on the eye-sight and other senses?