Shut your mouth / by George Catlin.

  • Catlin, George, 1796-1872.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Shut your mouth / by George Catlin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    their pleasures, but, of what are of infinitely greater importance to them, their lungs ; their best friends, that have kept them alive through the day, and from whose quiet and peaceful repose they are to look for happiness and strength during the toils of the following day. They should first recollect that their natural food is fresh air; and next, that the channels prepared for the supply of that food are the nostrils, which are supplied with the means of purifying the food for the lungs, as the mouth is constructed to select and masticate the food for the stomach. The lungs should be put to rest as a fond mother lulls her infant to sleep; they should be supplied with vital air, and protected in the natural use of it; and for such care, each successive day would repay in increased pleasures and enjoyments. The lungs and the stomach are too near neighbours not to be mutually affected by abuses offered to the one or the other; they both have their natural food, and the natural and appropriate .means prepared by which it is to be received. Air is the especial food of the lungs, and not of the stomach. He who sleeps with his mouth open draws cold air and its impurities into the stomach as well as into the lungs; and various dis- eases of the stomach, with indigestion and dyspepsia, are the consequences. Bread may almost as well be taken into the lungs, as cold air and wind into the stomach.