Health Department by J. H. Hanaford

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1875

Health Department.

By J. H. Hanaford

“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” 3 John 2.

“Fearfully and Wonderfully Made.”

THE statement of the wise man that “out of the heart are the issues of life,” had reference primarily to the moral nature, unquestionably, yet it has a physical application of a wonderful interest. Like the tongue, it is a “little member,” not “boasting great things,” but performing an amount of labor absolutely miraculous. The human heart is about six inches in length and four in diameter, contracting, or “beating,” about seventy times, in male adults, each minute, seventy-five in females, and in children more frequently. In sickness, of course, its “beats” are ordinarily much more frequent. The design of these contractions is to send the blood to every nook and recess of the body, bearing food for bone, muscle, nerve, hair, nails, blood-vessels, etc., without which the body could not receive its nourishment even for a single day. So true is this that the puncture of the finest needle, in any part of skin, produces a flow of blood, indicating that one or more of the millions of blood-vessels of the body—some of which are too small to be seen by the unaided eye—have been wounded.

Omitting all reference to the mysterious transformation of all kinds of food into red blood—though the same food, if taken by some of the lower orders of animals, would produce white or yellow blood, instead of red, conforming to the constitution of these animals—there is enough directly connected with the heart to commend our admiration. From birth, and even before, this faithful servant toils till the latest period of mortal life, pumping day and night untiringly, contracting, and sending about two and a half ounces of blood where it is needed, oftener than once each second of existence, since a moment’s pause would endanger health, if not life. This faithful sentinel in the citadel of life is true to his charge, never yielding to fatigue or indulgence for a single minute, so important is its mission, sending the pure blood, just purified in the lungs, or fresh from the laboratory of the organs of digestion, to repair the waste of our constantly dying bodies, substituting new particles as fast as the processes of decay remove old and worn-out ones. Without this regenerating process, this daily creation, our bodies, or portions of them, would be masses of effete, dead matter, as substantially so as if life were extinct. Truly, “in the midst of life we are in death.”

To form some vague idea of the labor performed by this small organ, let it be remembered that the human body contains about thirty pounds of blood, all of which passes from the heart to the lungs for purification and to all parts of the body once in about three minutes. And what a labor! At this rate, at the close of a life of “threescore years and ten,” this small and retired organ, having no reference to its acceleration in illness and childhood, will have beat no less than 2,565,440,000 times, lifting and sending up and through the minute ramifications of the blood-vessels a weight of more than 400,000,000 pounds, or about 200,475 tons! The hearts of the patriarchs must have performed a labor equal to raising more than 2,500,000 tons! And yet this little organ never stops for repairs. If it is out of order, as it often is, it labors and must labor till its power utterly ceases, and then stop from mere exhaustion. All of this is done by pumping less than three ounces at each contraction, each stroke.

The passage of such a vast amount of liquid through the hardest metals would wear away such a heart many times during a life time, and yet this soft and yielding heart endures all this labor, and never stops for repairs. Its walls are not very thick, though the fibers are arranged to give it the greatest amount of strength, its peculiar structure, of itself, proving a great first cause. It constitutes an exception to the general principle that health results from labor and succeeding rest, since it toils on from its creation till the close of life, though constantly in danger from disease and from accidents. Though its labors are often made even much more burdensome by excesses and dissipation, especially by the use of tobacco and ardent spirits—its repairs are only secured while constantly at work, being secured by that wonderful agency sometimes called recuperation, an agency constantly endeavoring to avert and remove the injuries resulting from our almost continual physical sins. The same blood that it sends to all parts of the body also visits its own structure for its own nourishment and protection.

Again, the care manifested in the protection of this organ is worthy of remark. A slight puncture of its walls would inevitably destroy life. To guard against such a contingency, it is placed where such an accident is not likely to occur, between the lobes of the lungs in the chest, which is surrounded in its walls by the ribs and still stronger bones, where it is again enclosed in a tough covering, sometimes called the “heart-case.” The arteries, the blood-vessels carrying the blood from the heart—the cutting of the larger of which would be as destructive, if not soon tied, as that of the heart itself—are deep seated, out of the way of ordinary accidents, while the veins are on the surface to some extent, as seen on the backs of the hands, the cutting of which is attended, ordinarily, by no special harm. These arteries are known by their beating, as at the wrist, though the larger ones are too far from the surface to be felt, being constantly protected, passing under muscles and bones, or through grooves manifestly made for their protection. A good illustration of the latter is found at the elbow, at what is called the “crazy-bone,” a depression or groove in the bone of arm through which the blood-vessels safely pass the joint—instead of on the surface where they would be constantly exposed with the nerve, a slight injury of which produces a singular sensation felt even to the ends of the fingers.

It is also true, even in the event of ordinary accidents, that the blood-vessels, torn as they usually are, do not bleed as freely as they do when cut, which is still another means of saving life, and another evidence of the mercy and goodness of the Heavenly Father.

It may be well to remark that some of the diseases attributed to the heart, as “heart-burn,” “palpitation of the heart,” are generally a derangement of the stomach reacting on the heart, that organ often being charged with the sins of another. Of course it is sometimes diseased and overexcited. The excitants floating in the blood are carried to the heart and irritate and excite it to over-action, resulting in debility, producing an effect not unlike that of putting similar substances, as mustard or pepper, in the eye. All of the stimulants and excitants tend to produce an increased action of the heart, resulting, as a necessary consequence, in disease or a diseasing tendency. Whatever irritates and disturbs the stomach produces, indirectly, more or less disturbance at the heart, and indeed upon the whole body. The stomach is generally overtasked, more cruelly worked than our horses, for which we justly feel considerable sympathy and regard, though that, unlike the heart, was made for some rest. If, therefore, we would avoid these “palpitations,” “flutterings,” “burnings” etc., a little more care of the stomach, less exciting, rich, concentrated, and unwholesome food would be promotive of our health and comfort. It is enough that it should labor constantly without being abused.—DR. J. H. HANAFORD, in Household.