Our bodies and how we live and keep well, or, How to know ourselves : being a popular and hygiene account of the human system, and its healthful working, with glossary of physiological terms and meanings / by Albert F. Blaisdell.

  • Albert F. Blaisdell
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Our bodies and how we live and keep well, or, How to know ourselves : being a popular and hygiene account of the human system, and its healthful working, with glossary of physiological terms and meanings / by Albert F. Blaisdell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the united branches are joined in one great vein, the inferior vena cava, which empties into the right auricle of the heart. The venous blood from the head and arms hows back, and empties into the right auricle by another large vein, the superior vena cava. Veins generally lie near the surface of the body, just beneath the skin. We may see them in almost any part of the body. The veins are abundantly supplied with little, pouch-like folds, or pockets, which act as valves, and allow the blood to flow only towards the heart. If we press the Angers along one of the veins in the arm, towards the hand, we shall see a number of little knots, or swellings, here and there along the vein. The blood thus forced hack fills the little pockets in the vein. Take away the finger, and the knots will at once disappear; because the blood is left free to flow towards the heart. The Veins compared to a Sewer System.—As we compared the arteries to the water-supply pipes of a great city, we may now compare the veins to another underground network of pipes, commonly called the “sewer system.” The pure, wholesome water is brought by the aqueduct-pipes to each house. It is used, becomes filthy with dirt, waste, and all kinds of impurities: then the drains from each house carry it off before it can do any harm. The sewer-pipes from the houses unite with those of the streets: those of the streets unite at last into one great main sewer, which carries away this unwholesome river of impurities. The veins of the body resemble this sewer system. The pure, wholesome blood is brought by the arteries, is used by the tissues, and becomes foul with impurities. The veins are the drain-pipes of the body, to carry away this impure blood from the tissues, and spread out their contents into Nature’s great purifying reservoir—the lungs. The Capillaries.—Between the end of the smallest
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