CONCERNING MAN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 28, 22 August 1868, Page 5

CONCERNING MAN.

Wonders at home by familiarity cease to excite astonishment ; but thence it happens that many know but little about the "house we live in "--the human body. We look upon a house from the outside, just as a whole or unit, never thinking of the many rooms, the curious passages, and the ingenious internal arrangements of the house, or of the wonderful structure of the man, the^ harmony and adaption of all his parts. In the human skeleton, about the time of maturity, are 165 bones. the muscles are about 500 in number. The length of the elimentary canal ia about 32 feet. The amount of blood in an adult averages 30 pounds, or full one-fifth of the entire weight. The heart is six inches in length and four inches in diameter, and beats seventy times per minute, 4200 times per hour, 100,800 per day, 36,772,600 times per 2,565,440,000 in three score years and ten, and at each beat two and a half ounces of blood are thrown out of it, one hundred and seventy-five ounces per six hundred md fifty-six pounds per hour, seven and three-fourths tuns per day. All che blood in the body passes through the heart in three minutes. Tin's little organ, by ita ceaseless industry, In the allotted span The P&almist gave to man, lifts the enormous weight of 370,700,200 tons. The lungs Hull contain about one gallon of air, atthe^Jkraal degree of inflation. We breathe 1200 times per hour, inhale of air, or 24,400 gallons per dayT^Ttlae t aggregate surface of the air cells of the Isn^s exceeds 20,000 square inches, an area very nearly equal to the floor of a room 12 feet square. The average weight of the brain of an adult mail is three pounds and eight ounces, of a female two pounds and four ounces. The nerves are all connected with it, directly, or by the spinal marrow.. These nerves, together with their branches and minute ramifications, probably ' exceed 10,000,000 in number, forming a " body guard " outnumbering by far the greatest army ever marshalled. The skin is composed of three layers, and varies from one-fourth to one-eighth of an inch in thickness. Its average area in an adult is estimated to be 2000 square inches. The atmospheric pressure being about 14 pounds to the square inch, a person of medium size is subjected to a. pressure of 40,000 pounds. Pretty tight hug ! Each square inch of skin contains 8500 sweating tubes, or perspiratory pores, each of which may be likened to a little drain-tile, one-fourth of an inch long,, making an aggregate length of the entire surface of the body of 201,166 feet, or a tile ditch for draining the body almost forty miles long. Man is made marvellously. Who ia eager to investigate the curious, to witness the wonderful works of the Omnipotent wisdom, let him not wander the wide world round to seek them, but examine himself. " The proper study of mankind is man."