Facts about the Body

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 15, 1864

Facts about the Body.

THE number of bones in the framework of the human body, is 260, 108 of which are in the feet and hands, there being in each 27.

The quantity of blood in adults is on an average about 30 pounds, which passes through the heart once in four minutes.

One tenth of the human body is solid matter. A dead body weighing 120 lbs., was dried in the oven till all moisture was expelled, and its weight was reduced to 12 lbs. Egyptian mummies are bodies thoroughly dried; they usually weigh about 7 lbs.

The lungs of an adult ordinarily inhale 30 cubic inches of air at once, and if we breathe 20 times in a minute, the quantity of air consumed in that time will be 800 cubic inches, or 48,000 inches an hour, and 1,152,000 inches in a day, which is equal to 86 hogsheads.

Of the above, we wish to call especial attention to the closing paragraph, about the lungs and the air that is needed for their support. Eighty-six hogsheads a day. About four hogsheads an hour. In view of this fact, what importance attaches to the subject of ventilation. How many make provision in their sleeping apartments, provided they spend eight hours in rest, for thirty hogsheads of fresh air during that time?