The History of a Mouthful of Bread by Jean Macé (great novels to read txt) 📕

what goes on inside ourselves. Your chest, my child, is a box which expands and contracts alternately; making a place for the air by the first effort, and then driving it out by the second. It is neither more nor less than a bellows, but of a simpler construction than that used by the cook. The exit pipe serves also for a door of entrance, and there is but one board instead of two.

The exit pipe is the larynx , of which we spoke before, when we were talking of swallowing the wrong way, and which communicates with the air outside, through the nose and mouth at the same time, allowing us to breathe through either one or the other as we like.

As to the board , I said a few words about it when I was describing the liver. It is the diaphragm -that separating partition-that floor which is placed between the two stories or divisions of the body-the belly and the chest.

But here especially the infinite superiority of the works of God over the miserable inventions of man comes out in all its grandeur.

A bellows which was to have the honor of keeping up within us that miraculous fire-the pre-eminently sacred fire-which we call Life, required something more than a common board for its foundation. And accordingly this, of which I am now going to give you a detailed history, is as marvellous as it is admirable. I fancy that when you have read my account, you will no longer turn up your nose at the vile word diaphragm .

Let us first take a peep at the construction of the bellows.

On each side of the vertebral column , from the neck to the loins, spring twelve long bones, one below the other, bent in the form of bows; these are called the ribs . The first seven pairs of ribs rest, and as it were, unite, in front, upon a bone called the sternum , which you can trace with your finger down to the pit of the stomach, at which point the finger sinks in, for there is no more sternum , and the last five ribs on each side no longer unite with those of the opposite one. For which reason they are called false ribs . On the other hand they are joined to each other at the ends by means of a strip or band of a substance sufficiently strong, but at the same time flexible, and somewhat elastic, which is called cartilage or gristle . The next time you see a roasting piece of veal on the table, look well at it, and you will see at the end a white substance which crackles under your teeth; that is gristle .

This forms the framework of our bellows, which you may picture to yourself as a kind of cage, widening towards the bottom and going to a point at the top, for the arches formed by the upper ribs are smaller than the others. The whole terminates in a sort of ring, through which pass, together, the oesophagus and the trachea .

The space between the ribs is occupied by muscles which reach from one to the other, and the whole framework or cage is shut in below by the
diaphragm , that marvellous board whose history I have promised to relate.

The diaphragm , as I told you some time ago, is a large muscle, thin and flat, stretched like a cloth between the chest and the abdomen . It is fastened by an infinity of little threads called fibres , to the lower edge of the cage I have just been describing, and it looks at first sight as if it must be incapable of moving, since it is fixed in one invariable manner all round the body.

It moves nevertheless, but not in the same way as the boards of our bellows.

Ask your brother to hold two corners of your pocket-handkerchief; take hold of the other two yourself, and turn the handkerchief so as to face the wind. The four corners remain in their place, do they not? but the middle, inflated by the wind, curves and swells out in front like a ship's sail, which itself is only an immense hand kerchief after all. Then draw the handkerchief tightly towards you, each to your own side, and it will recover itself and become flat again. Loosen it a little and it will curve and swell out again in the middle, and this maneuver you can go through as often as you choose.

Which very maneuver the diaphragm is continually performing, of and by itself.

In its natural position it bulges upwards in the middle, like a cloth swollen out by the wind, and thus occupies a portion of the chest at the expense of the lungs. When air has to be admitted, its fibres tighten and bring it flat again, as you and your brother brought the handkerchief flat just now by tightening it.

The whole space previously occupied by the arch of the diaphragm is thus given up to the lungs, which, being elastic, instantly stretch themselves out to it; while air, running in through the nose and mouth, fills up in proportion the empty place ( vacuum ) created by the extension of the lungs, exactly as in the case of the bellows.

But soon the fibres of the diaphragm relax. It rises up again into its old position, driving back the lungs as it does so; and the air finding there is now no room for it, goes out by the same way the other came in. I say the other , observe, because the air that goes out is no longer the same as when it came in; and this is the secret of why we breathe ; while the up and down movement of the diaphragm is the explanation of
how we breathe .

As you perceive, then, the mechanism of these bellows of ours, is of the most simple, and consequently of the most ingenious character, and leaves far behind it anything we have ever imagined.

Are you disappointed? Do you feel inclined to exclaim, "Is this all?" to ask where are the wonders I promised you? to protest that I may talk as I please about the inflating and flattening of a pocket-handkerchief? you can see nothing so marvellous in the matter; nothing worth making your mouth water for.

A little patience, Mademoiselle! Hitherto we have talked only of the machine; but there is a goblin inside it, and our fairy tale is going to begin again.

There are in some families certain old servants who belong to the house, more, it may be said, than their masters, in some ways. They educate the children, and they serve them till death; they live for them alone, and know so well what they have to do, both by day and night, that there is no need to give them any orders. Nay, not only is it unnecessary to give them directions-it is for the most part labor in vain. They are so completely at home in their business, that they will go nobody's way but their own. If you wish them to alter their habits they may obey you for an instant, but it is only to return into the old groove directly after; for they know better than you do what you want.

I was very little when I first read in the story-books of my day, some bitter complaints of the disappearance of this race of old-fashioned servants of the good old times. And you very likely may have seen it said that they are no longer to be met with. Yet there will always be some, depend upon it, in families, who know how to make and to keep them. Good old times or not, they have never been found in any other but these cases.

Still, I have just such a one as I have described-even I who am talking to you-and so has your mamma; and what is more, you have one yourself; and what is more still, everybody else has one. This servant of the good old times, who will never disappear (and this is more than one can promise of any other) is the Diaphragm! When you came into the world, my dear child, and were merely a poor little lump of flesh, without strength, intelligence, or will; incapable of giving any orders whatever to those organs of yours, of whose existence you were not even aware, your diaphragm quietly began his duties, without leave or inquiry from you, and with your first breath your life began. Since which he has always gone on, whether you attended to him or not, and his last effort will be your last sigh.

When you go to sleep, careless of all that is to happen, until you awake again, that servant of yours, indefatigable at his post, labors for you still, and the light breath which half opens your rosy little lips as it passes through them; that light breath which your happy mother watches with such pleasure, is his work. Midnight strikes-one o'clock-two; all around you are buried in sleep-but he is awake still. Were it otherwise-were he to go to sleep when you do, you would never awake again!

This protector of each instant, this faithful guardian of your life, is, nevertheless, subject to you as a servant to his master. Attend to him, and he will obey your orders. You can make him go at a great pace, or slowly, as you choose; or stop him altogether, if the fancy takes you to do so: but this not for long. The servant of the good old times is obstinate in the performance of his duties. He will yield to you in trifles; but do not try to force him over serious matters. I have read somewhere of a desperate young fellow, chained down in a dungeon, who killed himself by holding his breath; but I never quite believed it. Mr. Diaphragm would not allow any one to carry rebellion so far as that.

But we have not finished yet, and you do not yet know how appropriate is the comparison I am making.

Should any misfortune, any grief, any trifling annoyance even, befall his master, a good servant suffers with him, and as much as he does; sometimes even more. Occasionally the master is comforted, while he remains still disturbed.

"And the diaphragm?" you ask.

The diaphragm does precisely the same, my dear child. Yours, especially, shares in all your griefs to such an extent that, truth to say, he is not always quite reasonable. The other day when your mamma did not want to take you into the country with her, he was so sorry for you that he went into perfect convulsions, and you sobbed and sobbed till she was obliged to say, "Come, then, you naughty child;" whereupon you embraced your mamma, and were quite happy again, while he remained still unappeased, and your poor little chest was shaken more than once afterwards by his last convulsions.

Sobbing, you must know, is merely a convulsion-a great shake of the diaphragm-which is the reason of its causing such a heaving of the chest.

It is the same with respect to joy. The joy of the master makes the servant dance, and so the diaphragm too! Its little internal jumps are, then, what we call laughter-a