The chief function of the starchy and fatty food
elements is to keep up the physical temperature, by being submitted to
oxidation in the organism; therefore it is not necessary that they
should experience any vitalizing change, but are fitted to discharge
their duties in the vital domain by simply undergoing the solution
that fits them for absorption. But the materials intended to enter
into the composition of the body must be developed into living blood,
in order to be fitted to become part and parcel of the organs by which
power is evolved, and through the use of which we see, hear, feel,
think, and move. This wonderful process begins and is carried forward
in the absorbent system, which has been described by Dr. Carpenter as
a great blood-making gland. But the vital transformation is not
completed until the nutritive materials have been submitted to the
action of the liver, and afterward to the influence of oxygen in the
capillaries of the lungs. The food that was eaten a few hours before
is thus converted into rich scarlet arterial blood, if every part of
the complex vitalizing processes has been properly conducted. But the
influence of oxygen is requisite, not only to complete the
vitalization of the embryo blood in the lungs, it is an absolutely
essential element in every step of the vitalizing process in the
absorbents.
The average quantity of food required to sustain an ordinary man in
health and strength, I have previously stated, is about two pounds
avoirdupois daily, and an equal weight of oxygen is necessary to the
integrity of the vitalizing processes undergone by the food, and to
maintain the physical temperature.
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