Part 12 (2/2)

If we give a thought to the action of the electro-motor force, we would be constrained to believe that a power that could drive gas through a body of great density, would be much less than one that could force lymph through the same density. The same of alb.u.men.

POWER TO DRIVE GREATER THAN IN MEASLES.

Thus in smallpox the motor energy must be equal to the force that would convey alb.u.men through all tissues. Measles would be less, and so on according to the thickness of the fluids present. Thus you see the power to drive dead fluids from fascia must be much greater in smallpox than in cases of measles. Then we must see why the pulse of smallpox is so powerful during development of the pox. After killing the fluids by retention in the fascia of the skin, a greater force yet is created by hurting nerve fibers of fascia; then the motor energy appears and all the powers of life go to help the arteries force fluids through the skin and push to and leave them in the fascia of the skin to be eliminated as best it can. In some parts elimination fails, such places are called pox. They supurate and drop out leaving a pit (the pox mark). Now had the nerves of the skin and fascia not been irritated to contract the skin against the fascia pa.s.sing its dead fluids through the excretory ducts of the skin, we probably would have no eruption. It is not quite reasonable to conclude that after the heart overloads the fascia and the nerves lose their control by pressure of fluids, that all that is left is chemical action to the production of pus, which throws it out of fascia in intervening s.p.a.ces? Then should the fascia have greater death of its substances, we have one spot to run into others, and we have ”confluent smallpox.”

CHAPTER XIII.

A CHAPTER OF WONDERS AND SOME VALUABLE QUESTIONS.

Wonders on the Increase--What Is Life?--How Is Action Produced--Acquaint Yourself With the Machinery--Duty of the Osteopath--Formation of Sacrum--The Pelvis--Appearance of OEdema--Do All Diseases Have Appearance in OEdema.

WONDERS ON THE INCREASE.

Wonders are daily callers, and seem greatly on the increase during the Eighteenth century. As we read history we learn that no one hundred years of the past has produced wonders in such number and variety.

Stupid systems of government have given place to better and wiser.

Voyages of the ocean have had months by sail reduced to days by steam.

Journeys over land that would require six months by horse and ox, are now accomplished in six days by rail. Our law, medical and other schools of five and seven years, are now but two or three; and the graduates of such schools are far superior in useful knowledge to those of the five and seven. And no wonder at that, for the facilities for giving the pupil an education are so far superior that the knowledge sought, can be obtained in less time. Our schools are not intended to use the greatest number of days that are allotted to man. But at this day schooling and learning mean, to obtain useful knowledge in the quickest way that a thoroughness can be obtained. If there is any method by which arithmetic can be taught so as to master it in thirty days instead of thirty months let us have it. We want knowledge, we are willing to pay for it, we want all we pay for, and we want our heads kept out of the sausage-mill of time wasting.

A great question now stands before us: What are the possibilities of mind to improve our methods of gaining knowledge, shorten time, and getting greater and better results? I am free to say the question is too momentous to form an answer, as each day brings a new wonder, to the man or woman who reasons on cause, and gives demonstrations by effects.

WHAT IS LIFE?

The philosopher who first asked that question no one knows. But all intelligent persons are interested in the solution of this problem, at least to know some tangible reason why it is called life; whether life is personal or so arranged that it might be called an individualized principle of nature.

I wish to think for a time on this line, because we should make a wise handling of the machinery of the body.

If life in man has been formed to suit the size and duties of the being; if life has a living and separate personage, then we should be governed by such reasons as would give it the greatest chance to go on with its labors in the bodies of man and beast.

We know by experience that a spark of fire will start the principles of powder into motion, which, were it not stimulated by the positive principle of father nature, which finds this germ lying quietly in the womb of s.p.a.ce, would be silently inactive for all ages, without being able to move or help itself, save for the motor principle of life given by the father of all motion.

HOW IS ACTION PRODUCED.

Right here we could and should ask the question: Is this action produced by electricity put in motion, or is it the active principle that comes as a spiritual man? If so, it is useless to try, or hope to know what life is in its minutia. But we do know that life can only display its natural forces by the visible action of the forms it produces.

If we inspect man as a machine, we find a complete building, a machine that courts inspection and criticism. It demands a full exploration of all its parts with their uses. Then the mind is asked to see or find the connection between the physical, and the spiritual. By nature you can reason on the roads that the powers of life are arranged to suit its system of motion.

If life is an individualized personage, as we might express that mysterious something, and it must have definite arrangements by which it can be united and act with matter; then we are admonished to acquaint ourselves with the arrangements of those natural connections, the one or many, as they are connected to all parts of the completed being.

As motion is the first and only evidence of life, by this thought we are conducted to the machinery through which life works to accomplish these results.

ACQUAINT YOURSELF WITH THE MACHINERY.

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