HATHA YOGA/PART 6
CHAPTER 6.
THE LIFE FLUID
In our last chapter we gave you an idea of how the food
we eat is gradually transformed and resolved into substances capable of being
absorbed and taken up by the blood, which carries the nourishment to all parts
of the system, where it is used in building up, repairing and renewing the
several parts of the physical man. In this chapter we will give you a brief
description of how this work of the blood is carried on.
The nutritive portions of the digested food is taken up
by the circulation and becomes blood. The blood flows through the arteries to
every cell and tissue of the body that it may perform its constructive and
recuperative work. It then returns through the arteries, carrying with it the
broken down cells and other waste matter of the system, that the waste may be
expelled from the system by the lungs and other organs performing the
"casting-out" work of the system. This flow of the blood to and from
the heart is called the Circulation.
The engine which drives this wonderful system of physical
machinery is, of course, the Heart. We will not take up your time describing
the heart, but will instead tell you something of the work performed by it.
Let us begin at the point at which we left off in our
last chapter—the point at which the nourishment of the food, taken up by the
blood which assimilates it, reaches the heart, which sends it out on its errand
of nourishing the body.
The blood starts on its
journey through the arteries, which are a series of elastic canals, having
divisions and subdivisions, beginning with the main canals which feed the
smaller ones, which in turn feed still smaller ones until the capillaries are
reached. The capillaries are very small blood vessels measuring about one
three-thousandth of an inch in diameter. They resemble very fine hairs, which
resemblance gives them their name. The capillaries penetrate the tissues in
meshes of network, bringing the blood in close contact with all the parts.
Their walls are very thin and the nutritious ingredients of the blood
exude through their walls and are taken up by the tissues. The capillaries not
only exude the nourishment from the blood, but they also take up the blood on
its return journey (as we will see presently) and generally fetch and carry for
the system, including the absorption of the nourishment of the food from the
intestinal villi, as described in our last chapter.
Well, to get back to the arteries. They carry the rich,
red, pure blood from the heart, laden with health-giving nutrition and life,
distributing it through large canal into smaller, from smaller into still
smaller, until finally the tiny hair-like capillaries are reached and the
tissues take up the nourishment and use it for building purposes, the wonderful
little cells of the body doing this work most intelligently. (We shall have
something to say regarding the work of these cells, bye-and-bye.) The blood
having given up a supply of nourishment, begins its return journey to heart,
taking with it the waste products, dead cells, broken-down tissue and other
refuse of the system. It starts with the capillaries, but this return journey
is not made through the arteries, but by a switch-off arrangement it is
directed into the smaller veinlets of the venous system (or system of
"veins”), from whence it passes to the larger veins and on to the heart.
Before it reaches the arteries again, on a new trip,
however, something happens to it. It goes to the crematory of the lungs, in
order to have its waste matter and impurities burnt up and cast off. In another
chapter we will tell you about this work of the lungs.
Before passing on,
however, we must tell you that there exists another fluid which circulates
through the system. This is called the Lymph, which closely resembles the blood
in composition. It contains some of the ingredients of the blood which have
exuded from the walls of the blood-vessels and some of the waste products of
the system, which, after being cleansed and "made-over" by the
lymphatic system, re-enter the blood, and are again used. The lymph circulate
in thin vein-like canals, so small that they cannot be readily seen by the
human eye, until they are injected with quick silver. These canals empty into
several of the large veins, and the lymph then mingles with the returning
blood, on its way to the heart. The "Chyle," after leaving the small
intestine (see last lesson) mingles with the lymph from the lower parts of the body,
and gets into the blood in this way, while the other products of the digested
food pass through the portal vein and the liver on their journey—so that,
although they take different routes, they meet again in the circulating blood.
So, you will see, the blood is the constituent of the
body which, directly or indirectly, furnishes nourishment and life to all the
parts of the body. If the blood is poor, or the circulation weak, nutrition of
some parts of the body must be impaired, and diseased conditions will result.
The blood supplies about one-tenth of man's weight. Of this amount about
one-quarter is distributed in the heart, lungs, large arteries and veins; about
one-quarter in the liver; about one-quarter in the muscles, the remaining
quarter being distributed among the remaining organs and tissues. The brain
utilizes about one-fifth of the entire quantity of blood.
Remember, always, in thinking about the blood, that the
blood is what you make it by the food you eat, and the way you eat it. You can
have the very best kind of blood, and plenty of it, by selecting the proper
foods, and by eating such food as Nature intended you to do. Or, on the other
hand, you may have very poor blood, and an insufficient quantity of it, by
foolish gratification of the abnormal Appetite, and by improper eating (not
worthy of the name) of any kind of food. The blood is the life—and you make the
blood—that is the matter in a nut-shell.
Now, let us pass on to the crematory of the lungs, and
see what is going to happen to that blue, impure venous blood, which has come
back from all parts of the body, laden with impurities and waste matter. Let us
have a look at the crematory.
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