Health Lessons Part 12

=The Capillaries or Feeding Tubes.=--These are the tiny tubes, finer than hairs, which join the smallest end branches of the arteries with the beginnings of the little veins. They are so thickly scattered in the flesh that you cannot stick it with a pin without piercing one.

They are called feeding tubes because they have such very thin walls that the food in the blood and the oxygen brought from the lungs can pa.s.s through to feed the muscles and other organs. The dead parts of the body and also the ashes of the food used up, pa.s.s from the organs into the capillaries.

=The Veins or Returning Tubes.=--The veins, beginning in fine branches formed by the capillaries, return the blood to the heart. The branches unite into larger and larger vessels and finally flow into one main vein, the _vena cava_. This extends along in front of the backbone and opens into the heart.

=Why the Blood flows in only one Direction.=--The heart causes the flow of the blood. It does this by squeezing together its walls so as to make the blood go out into the arteries. When once in the arteries, the blood must go forward because there are little doors at the mouths of the arteries in the heart. These doors, called _valves_, open in only one direction, so that the blood cannot flow backward (Fig. 71).

There are other valves between the upper and lower cavities of the heart, preventing the blood from being pushed back into the veins.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 71.--The heart with the front part cut away to show the four chambers and valves. The arrows show the direction in which the blood flows.]

The movement of the walls of the heart in and out is called the _heart beat_. This can be plainly felt by placing the hand on the left side of the chest. The heart beats about seventy times each minute in grown persons, but much oftener in children. At each beat a wave of blood flows along the arteries. This is known as the _pulse_. It may be felt at the base of the thumb, where an artery runs just under the skin.

=Why the Heart sometimes beats Faster.=--When we run or do hard work, the heart may beat twice as fast as when we are lying down. This is because the muscles need more oxygen to help them act. Work makes them get hungry, and they send word by the nerves to the heart to hurry along the blood to bring more oxygen from the lungs.

When germs make the body sick, the heart often beats faster because it is affected by the poison made by the germs. The doctor then feels the pulse to tell how much the body is poisoned.

=Use of Blood Cells.=--The red cells act like boats. They load up with oxygen in the lungs and carry it to all parts of the body. Here they trade it off for carbon dioxide, a waste substance. This they carry back to the lungs to be cast out of the body.

There is one white blood cell to every four hundred red ones. The white cells are the body-guards. They change their shape and are able to crawl through the walls of the capillaries. Wherever the body is hurt, they collect in large numbers and eat the germs which are always trying to get into the body through sores. The white matter called _pus_ in a sore is largely made of white blood cells which came there to fight the germs and were killed in the battle.

The germs of boils and fevers often get into the blood, but the white cells usually kill them before they have a chance to grow into large numbers and make the body sick.

=How to stop Bleeding.=--Most of the larger arteries are deep in the flesh and seldom get cut. There are many veins just under the skin. If the blood comes out in spurts, it is from an artery; but if it flows steadily, it is from a vein. If the blood does not run out in a stream, it will stop without any special care. As soon as the blood gets to the air it forms a jellylike ma.s.s called a _clot_. This helps stop the flow. All hurt places in the skin should be tied up in a clean cloth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 72.--Stopping the flow of blood from an artery.]

If a large artery is cut, a bandage twisted tight with a stick around the limb on the side of the wound next to the heart will stop the bleeding. If a vein is cut, the bandage should be placed on the side of the cut away from the heart.

=Alcoholic Drinks weaken the Blood.=--It has been noticed for some years that when a user of beer or whisky is attacked with fever, the disease is more severe than in one not using alcohol. The reason for this has lately been explained by a well-known scientist working in Paris. He put certain disease germs in rabbits, but they did not become sick. When he gave them a little alcohol and put the same amount of disease germs in them as before, they became sick and died.

By careful study he learned that the white blood cells had in the first case killed the germs. In the second experiment the blood cells were made so weak and lazy by the alcohol that they did not put up such a strong fight against the germs.

=Tobacco and the Blood.=--Any one who chews or smokes tobacco regularly gets much of the poison into the blood. The vessels in the mouth and throat drink in some of the juice and also the poison from the smoke. How much this poison affects the blood cells is not known, but it is likely to do them some harm because it makes the growing cells of the body less active.

=How Beer weakens the Heart.=--Whisky was at one time thought to strengthen the heart, but doctors generally agree now that it weakens the heart. It may make the heart beat a little stronger for a few minutes, but after that the beating is weaker than usual.

Much use of beer is known to make fat collect around the heart and also cause some of the heart muscle itself to change into fat. In this way the heart becomes so weak that it can no longer do its work, and death results. The reports from Germany show that hundreds of persons die every year from weakened hearts made so by the use of much beer.

=Alcohol hurts the Blood Vessels.=--Careful examination of the blood vessels of drunkards after death shows that in many cases the alcohol has caused the walls of the vessels to become thick and sometimes hard. The thickening of the wall makes the channel of the tube smaller. The heart must then work much harder to get the blood through to feed the tissues.

=Tobacco and the Heart.=--Many boys who use tobacco regularly do not have a steady heart beat. This is specially true of those who smoke several cigarettes daily. A few years ago, when our country was at war with Spain, thousands of young men, wanted for soldiers, were examined to find out whether their bodies were strong enough to endure the hardships of war. Hundreds were refused admittance to the army because of weak bodies, and many of them were reported by the physicians as having hearts weakened by the use of tobacco.

The boys preparing for the army at the Military Academy at West Point and for sea fighting at the Naval Academy at Annapolis are not allowed to smoke cigarettes. Our country must have strong men for hard work.

Tobacco never gives strength, but often causes weakness.

CHAPTER XVII

INSECTS AND HEALTH

=Malaria or Chills and Fever.=--Malaria is a disease in which the patient usually has a chill followed by a fever at the same time each day or every other day. Thousands of people suffer from this sickness in the warm parts of our country and hundreds of them die every year.

In some regions people cannot live because this sickness attacks every one who comes there.

Many years ago a doctor found in the blood of malaria patients tiny animals. He thought that they might be the cause of the illness, but he could not find out how they got into the blood.

=Finding out how Malaria Germs get into the Blood.=--It had been noticed for many years that mosquitoes were always found wherever there was malaria. In the year 1900 two men decided to find out if they could live in a malaria region and not have the disease when the mosquitoes were kept from biting them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 73.--Position of the common humpback mosquito at rest with body full of blood sucked by thrusting the bill into the flesh.]

They made their home a whole season in a cottage in the midst of many persons who were sick with malaria. They breathed the same air, ate the same kind of food, and drank the same kind of water as those who suffered from the disease, but they remained well. The only thing that they did different from those who got sick was to keep the mosquitoes out of their rooms at night by means of screens. This experiment and many other studies have shown that we catch malaria only by the bites of mosquitoes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 74.--Position of the malaria mosquito at rest.]

=Only a Few Mosquitoes carry Malaria.=--Malaria is not common in all regions where mosquitoes live, and it has been found that only one group of mosquitoes carries the germs. The two common groups are the straight-backed and the humped. To prove that the straight-backed ones did the harm several of them were allowed to suck blood from a man sick with malaria in Italy. They were then sent to London and let bite a healthy man. In a few days he became sick with malaria. Many experiments with the humped-back mosquitoes, found nearly everywhere in our country, show that they do not carry malaria germs.

=Yellow Fever.=--Until 1901 yellow fever was the scourge of many cities in the South. Thousands of persons lost their lives from it.

Wherever the dread disease broke out in a city many persons would flee to the country because they thought that they could not breathe the air without getting the germs.

Some persons thought that mosquitoes might cause the disease, and in 1900 experiments were carried out in Cuba to learn whether mosquitoes really did carry yellow fever germs. Seven men made their home in a room well screened to keep out the mosquitoes. They used clothing which had been worn by others sick with the fever and even slept on pillows and blankets on which yellow fever victims had died. Many persons thought that these bedclothes were full of fever germs and that all the men would surely get the disease. Not one of them, however, got sick although they lived in the midst of these soiled materials for three weeks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 75.--The yellow fever mosquito biting the finger.

Note how the lower lip is bent.]

Seven other men were chosen for another experiment. A large room was prepared and made thoroughly clean. Only clean bedding and clean clothes were used. The men were given pure food and pure water, but into the room were let loose mosquitoes which had been sucking blood from a person sick with the fever. In a few days six of the seven men became sick with the fever and one of them died. From these experiments and other studies we now know that _this dreadful fever is carried from the sick to the well only by the bites of mosquitoes_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 76.--A bunch of mosquito eggs floating on the surface of the water. Enlarged about fifteen times.]

=How Mosquitoes Live.=--Before we can get rid of any pests we must know where the eggs are hatched and the young pa.s.s their early life.

The eggs of mosquitoes are laid on standing water. The water may be in an old tomato can, a rain barrel, a cistern, or a large pond. A day or two after the mother lays one or two hundred eggs, they hatch into dark, wriggling objects called _wigglers_. In from ten to twenty days later they change into flying mosquitoes. These habits of life show that the easiest time to kill them is when they are young.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 77.--Photograph of wigglers, the stage in which the mosquito lives a week or two in water.]

=Getting rid of Mosquitoes.=--During warm weather mosquitoes cause the death of more than a thousand persons in the world every day besides making many others very sick. To get rid of mosquitoes is to prevent sickness and death. In one year yellow fever killed over five thousand people in New York and Philadelphia because the doctors did not know how to stop the disease from spreading.

When this fever broke out in New Orleans in 1905, less than five hundred persons died of it because the doctors had then learned that the disease is spread only by the yellow fever mosquito. They therefore began killing the mosquitoes. Kerosene was poured over all the ponds and stagnant pools of water which could not be drained. This kills the young mosquitoes because the oil gets into their breathing tube which they stick up to the surface of the water to get air. All rain barrels and tin cans were emptied and cisterns were tightly covered. Men, women, and children worked week days and Sundays killing mosquitoes because they knew that they were saving human life. The destroying fever was stopped.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 78.--Photograph of eggs laid on waste matter by two flies in one hour.]

=Flies cause much Sickness.=--Very few people are afraid of house flies because they do not bite. Although they are so small and seemingly harmless yet we know that they cause many more deaths every year than mad dogs, poisonous snakes, and all wild beasts.

Flies crawl around among slops, in spittoons, and in other unclean places. In this way they get thousands of germs of tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and cholera on their feet and then scatter them over our food as they crawl about on the table, in the grocery store, or among the milk cans. In our last war with Spain more than a thousand of our soldiers were made sick with fever carried to them by flies.

In Denver, Colorado, in 1908 fifty persons were made sick with the fever by flies which fed on the slops from a sick room and then crawled around in the milk cans from which those who became sick used milk.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 79.--Photograph of the worm stage or larva of the fly at the left and three of the sleeping stage or pupae at the right.

Twice the natural size.]