Personal and household arrangements in relation to health : including hints with respect to the use of gas, gas-stoves, and of modern wall-papers / by John Angell.

  • Angell, John
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Personal and household arrangements in relation to health : including hints with respect to the use of gas, gas-stoves, and of modern wall-papers / by John Angell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    energy (its potential energy), and when the oxygen begins to combine chemically the carbon and the hydrogen of the candle, the quiet energy imprisoned in the said three chemical elements is immediately set free in the form of active (kinetic) energy, manifesting itself in the form of the light and the heat of the burning candle. When the candle is unacted upon by the oxygen of the atmosphere it remains inactive and entirely unchanged, and would, in fact, of itself, as I have previously said, last for ever— that is, as long as the world itself shall last. But if acted on by the oxygen of the air it immediately begins to be consumed, and simultaneously to set free its imprisoned latent energy in the form of heat; and the more rapidly its imprisoned energies are unloosed, the more intense are the heat and light it gives out, and the sooner the candle is entirely destroyed. But I imagine many of my audience are beginning to inquire by this time, What has all this talk about gunpowder, gun-cotton, ^ and burning candle to do with Personal and Household Arrange- ments with Regard to Health? It has everything to do with it. The human body—your body—in its state of health, is the most perfect of all created things in this world. It is a most complex machine (we call it an organisation), capable of doing the highest kind of work that has to be done in this universe. It performs • the most exquisite physical movements; it thinks; it feels; it loves; and it reasons. When its various parts perform theu: various functions and duties in harmony with the natural laws- which its Creator has established for its government, it is a source: of happiness and well-being, not only to itself, but to all around. When it goes wrong (and it never does so but through our own: misconduct, voluntary or involuntary), it, on the contrary, causes^ us to become a source of trouble and misery, not only to ourselves but to a greater or less extent, to our friends and relations and: the'rest of the community. Nay, such misconduct or disobedience, of natural law, not only may, but it actually does, cause the. human body to become a centre from which extends a widening, circle of infection, misery, and death, such as, m fact, it is the.^ especial object of this Association to arrest and destroy. But I ask again, whence is derived the power with ^^hlch. the human body does its work-by which the living man moves< and thinks? The answer is obvious. The source of this po^^er i^ the potential energy, of which we have P^^^^^^^^^ JP°^^' ^^^^^^^^ stored up in the chemical elements-the carbon the hydrogen and the nitrogen of the blood and tissues of the body, and of th..
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