The moment the new-born babe inhales the first breath, its body becomes capable of that function which constitutes living—growth, replacement of cells, repairment of fractures and all other injuries, and recovery from the various ailments—when not hampered by doctors and their poisonous remedies.
Every living thing must breathe the Air of the Universe or die. Trees breathe through their leaves. Thus the leaves are the lungs of the tree. Insects breathe through tiny openings in their bodies. Frogs breathe partly through the skin. Fishes breathe by absorbing oxygen out of the water as it passes over their gills. Man breathes partly through the skin, but largely through the lungs.
The term Blood Poison may frighten you. But in the process of living man’s blood is poisoned by a constant process of body function. It is just as constantly purified. The purification process not only occurs in the lungs, but that is the only means provided by the Cosmic Creative Process to purify the blood.
If the layman knew that, it would mean a big loss to those who live and thrive on human misery. It would stop the annual expenditure of millions of dollars for worthless blood tonics and blood purifiers.
When the blood flows from the heart to the lungs to cast off its cargo of poison, and be purified by the air in the lungs, the blood is then and there further poisoned by the polluted air in the lungs. Read that again.
The capillaries are a vast network of blood vessels that connect the arteries to the veins, and so small that they could not be seen with microscopes in use in 1816 when the celebrated Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood. He was unable to describe how the blood passes from the arteries to the veins.
Were the heart a pump as claimed, it would have to force the blood from the feet up to the heart against the pull of gravity. The pressure of this large volume of blood would fail on the tiny capillaries, with walls thinner than a soap-bubble, and the entire capillary system below the heart would be ruptured and burst in an instant by this back pressure.
The capillaries in the lungs are the last tubes through which the blood flows to get the air gases it must have, or fail in its function. Sixty to 80 times a minute it flows from the heart to the lungs, and it must always find air there waiting for it, or death ensues.
The lung capacity is so large that an average man inhales daily approximately 777,000 cubic inches of air, and in the same time 125 barrels of blood pass through the lungs for purification.
In the lungs there are millions of capillaries. They twine among the tiny air tubes and air cells as a vine twines among the branches and leaves of a tree. The walls of the little breathing organs of the tiny capillaries are much thinner than the walls of soap bubbles. The thinnest film imaginable separates the Blood and the Air in the lungs.
It is here that the ultimate act of breathing occurs. It is here that the air and blood intermingle. It is here that the Breath of Life passes into the blood. It is here that the poisons, the filth and impurities of the body are brought by the blood and cast off, and a new load of oxygen, Nitrogen, Hydrogen and the Essence of Sunlight is absorbed by the blood and conveyed to all parts of the body to furnish the trillions of cells with the normal stimulation to activate their various functions.
The slightest interference with this vital process is fatal. The lips quickly turn bluish-purple when respiration is obstructed, due to the rapid collection of carbon dioxide gas in the blood. In just a few seconds the blood would turn almost black in color if respiration is obstructed or halted.
SHOWER OF RED MIST
The mass of blood vessels in the lungs are distributed everywhere in the minute spaces between the millions of air vesicles, and envelop their walls with a vascular network.
The blood flows through the lungs in thousands of minute streams, almost in contact with the air contained in the vesicles.
In fact, it is as though the River of Living Water were sprinkled through the breath of Life in an exceedingly fine shower of Red Mist, so that every tiny particle of blood and every atom of the Breath of Life in the lungs are brought together in the closest proximity.
The entire blood supply of the body passes through the lungs for purification many times each hour from birth till death.
As the blood enters the lungs it is of a dark blue or purple color approaching to black. This is the venous blood and it is loaded with all the filth and poison collected from the cells, tissues, glands and organs of the body.
As this blood enters the lungs, it is a stream of poison in every sense of the word. This is the blood that flows back to the heart through the great veins from all parts of the body, to flow on to the lungs for purification.
A marvelous change occurs in the color of the blood as the purging process occurs in the lungs. At the instant the air gases in the lungs are absorbed by the blood over the whole internal surface of the lungs, the dark, poisonous stream is changed in color, a though by magic, to a brilliant scarlet.
This is Blood Purification, and this is the only way in which the River of Living Water can be purified.
BLOOD POISON
The Vital Stream that turns the Wheels of Life is not only the health-producing and life-sustaining agent of the body, but it is also the destroying power. It could not be otherwise without reversing law and order in the body’s vital economy.
From the millions of air cells in the lungs, the gases in the air we inhale pass into the blood, and are collected by the red blood corpuscles. They are about 1/3200 of an inch in diameter, and the blood contains 25 to 30 trillions of them. Their total combined surface would cover an area approximately 200 feet square.
When we inhale polluted air, the red corpuscles recoil from it in the lungs because it is dangerous, and then trouble begins.
The red corpuscles have a double concave surface, and a smooth outline at their edges. The absorption of poisonous gases and fumes into the blood through the lungs, causes rapid changes in these corpuscles. They lose their roundness, becoming oval and irregular; and instead of having natural attraction for one another and running together as they do in good health, they lie loosely scattered before the eye, and indicate to the learned observer as clearly as though they spoke to him, that the one from whose blood they were taken, is physically depressed and deplorably deficient both in mental and muscular tone.
The tiny capillaries in the lungs are just large enough to allow the red corpuscles to flow through them in single file. The only element that separates the corpuscles from the air in the air-cells of the lungs, is a thin membrane about sixteen-one hundred thousandths of an inch thick.
If we apply heat to the skin, the blood vessels in it expand and become red. If we inhale air too warm, the blood vessels in the lungs expand, and the corpuscles cannot pick up oxygen so easily. That is one reason why very warm air is suffocating. Again, if the air is very poisonous, the corpuscles recoil from it, which also produces a suffocating sensation.
The symptoms of suffocation are not always the result of the conditions mentioned. They may appear because thickened or carbon-coated walls of the air-cells prevent free passage of oxygen into the blood.
Cold air is bracing because it does not expand the blood vessels in the lungs and the corpuscles can readily absorb the oxygen. Also, cold air contains more oxygen than warm air. The air contains 25% more oxygen at zero temperature than at 100 degrees above zero.
Symptoms of suffocation appear in chronic and semi-chronic lung ailments, as asthma and tuberculosis. Labored breathing is one of the chief conditions of old age. It is not the cause of old age. A man of 80 should breathe as easily as when he was 20. Why he does not is what we are going to learn.
BREATH CULTURE
The Broom publication contained in a certain issue the following remarks under “Breath Culture”:
“When you deal with Breath you are dealing with Creation—with the power that builds and destroys. You can create both ways: Heaven or Hell.”
“I have studied and practiced Breath Culture, consciously and desi
gnedly, for over forty-five years.
“Take a locomotive, a steam engine; It pulls and breathes, and with every Exhalation the steam hits the cylinders (piston heads), which make the wheels go round.
“Take the automobile—with every exhalation, the pistons are hit by force, which make the wheels go round.
“The dynamics of the body are in the lungs. No breath, no motion, no life, no thought.
“The steam engine, with all its puffs and snorting, does not think. It moves, it pulls loads, it travels fast, but it stays within the limits of the law set by the designer and travels on fixed rails.
“Man is a different engine. He thinks; but he can think only as the rails or ruts will let him think. (Note: His mind and education are controlled and he thinks according to a pattern prepared for him.—Klamonti).
“As long as you bear in mind that you cannot think at all, while in this human frame, without grey matter, vibrations and chemical changes in the grey matter, you will not think of thought metaphysically, but intelligently, realistically.
“Spirit comes from Latin ‘spirare,’ to breathe. Thus spirit is a very material process too, my friend, not merely metaphysical.” (Note: There is a vast difference between Spirit and Breathing. Breathing is a mechanical process while Spirit is the substance inhaled.”—Prof. Hilton Hotema
It is not an empty allegory to assert that the gaseous elements termed Air, God’s spiritual substance flowing into man’s lungs, is the steam in the boiler of the human locomotive that makes it move and supplies the power exhibited by the body.
The average adult inhales 480 cubic inches of air per minute while at rest; five times as much if he walks four miles an hour, and seven times as much if he walks six miles an hour. It is not food but air that supplies the body with power.
VITAL FUNCTION
God is the Master Economist and makes nothing in vain. There is a scientific reason why He made man’s lungs so large.
Air is so important to living that the size of all the body’s organs sinks into utter insignificance when compared to the lungs. While man is careful about what he eats, he pays no attention to the kind of air he breathes unless it is so foul as to be nauseating.
In a normal pair of lungs there are approximately a billion tiny air cells. If they were all spread out in a flat surface, they would cover a space about 40 by 50 feet. This is the breathing surface that directly contacts the air in the lungs. This is man’s vital capacity.
All the air in the lungs is not changed at each breath. Normally, we inhale about 30 cubic inches of air, or about 500 cubic centimeters each time we breathe.
This is called the (1) tidal air. It comes and goes without special effort. If we take a deep breath, we will inhale 100 cubic inches more. This extra cubic intake is called the (2) complemental air.
Vital powers.—Suppose sudden danger arises, as in the case of an angry bull, and we need extra energy to flee.
We are told energy comes from food combustion. But our stomach is empty, and we cannot depend on food for extra energy in the emergency. And if we could not at once inhale more than 30 cubic inches of air, the nerves could not supply the vital power necessary to make our legs move at top speed.
In such cases, extra air capacity is provided by greater lung expansion and faster breathing. At the end of our run we find ourselves breathing hard and fast.
This extra air is termed the (3) reserve or supplemental air, and amounts to approximately 1200 to 1500 cubic centimeters. Besides the tidal, complemental and supplemental air, there is a certain amount of air that always remains in the lungs. No matter what we do, we cannot force all the air out of the air cells of the lungs. If we could and did, we would drop dead.
THE RESIDUAL AIR
About 100 to 200 cubic inches of air constantly remains in the lungs after the most violent expiratory effort. The amount depends in great measure on the absolute size of the thorax, but may be estimated at about 1,000 to 12,000 cubic centimeters. This is termed the (4) residual air, without which the function of the body cells would fall below the life level, and that would be somatic death.
The Residual Air in the lungs is all that stands between life and death. It is the vigilant guard that protects man from the dangers of—
1. Very cold air that would kill quickly if it could enter the terminal air sacs without first being wanned by the residual air, and—
2. Very dirty air which, if sucked directly into the terminal air sacs, would coat their walls so thickly with filth that sufficient oxygen to preserve life could not pass into the blood, and one would die quickly of suffocation.
If the air of zero weather and colder could be sucked right down into the terminal air sacs of the lungs, the sacs would freeze immediately, and man would drop dead as the penalty for living in such a hostile environment.
The cold air must meet and mix with the warm residual air in the lungs before it can enter the terminal air sacs. That is all that stands between life and death in the case of those who live in cold regions.
The protection against dirty air prevents man from dropping dead in the filthy air of civilization. It cannot prevent him from dying by degrees from the cumulative effect of that filthy air.
When we cough out dirty mucus, that dirt is in the air we inhale. The residual air prevents the dirt from entering the terminal air sacs, and we cough the dirt out as it accumulates in the lungs, provided it is free and does not stick to the walls of the lungs.
GASES AND ACIDS
The Residual Air in the lungs warms the cold air as it enters, and to a certain degree obstructs dust and soot from entering the terminal air sacs. But it cannot stop the poisonous gases and acids in the air of civilization from passing directly into the terminal air sacs, and thru their walls into the blood.
In this category come the deadly gases of modern warfare, which were used in World War I to kill soldiers and others who inhaled it. Those not killed in battle by the gases did not live long, and none ever recovered health who had been seriously “gassed.”
The deadly gases swept over Europe, causing an epidemic of lung ailments unprecedented in human history.
The air in those days was so heavily charged with the gases and acids, that they were carried across the Atlantic by the winds, which may have resulted in the influenza and pneumonia epidemic in this country in 1918-1919, when thousands died of lung ailments.
For some years after the war, thousands living in the war zone of Europe suffered from lung ailments and many died. Could the gases and acids rising as vapor from the ground of the battle fields have been the cause?
A report of the registrar-general of England in that 1918-1919 epidemic, gave a total of 112,239 deaths, or a mortality rate of 3,129 per million population—the highest ever recorded.
In the days of the terrible cholera epidemic of 1849, which coincided with the wholesale vaccination of the population, the mortality rate per million was only 3,033 (Journal of the A.M.A. September 11th, 1920, page 755).
An article in the Scientific American for September 20th, 1919, stated that up to March 10th, 1919, 56,991 U. S. soldiers had died of disease as against 48,909 killed in battle. Of those that died of disease, 47,500 were charged to lung ailments. In other words, lung ailments killed as many soldiers under the best medical care this country could furnish, as weapons of the enemy killed in battle.
Thomas Frances, Jr., M. D., in writing of the 1918-1919 influenza epidemic, said,
“In a period a few months, 20 million people perished, 548,000 in this country alone” (Journal of the A.M.A. V. 122, P. 4, May 1st, 1943).
That made a death-rate from lung ailments of 5,211 per million population, an all-time high that greatly exceeds the mortality rate of the terrible scourges of the dark ages.
The horrible experience in the use of poisonous gas in World War I shocked the world, for so little is known about the agencies of death that float in the air, and caused the nations to agree not to use gas in future wars.
THE SKIN
The rapid manner in which the end product of cell function pollutes the body and the high importance of physical purification is well shown by the function the skin plays in the process.
The skin is a porous covering of the body that is connected with a vast network of nerves, arteries and veins, and it contains billions of tiny openings called pores.
The skin is an organ of elimination of poisonous substance resulting from cell function, and of assimilation of vital elements from the atmosphere, when it functions properly.
An historical event occurred that illustrates the importance of the skin in this work. During the inauguration of festivities of one of the Popes of Rome, a little girl was painted all over with gold paint so she would impersonate a cherub. Within twenty minutes she was dead. The cause: Automatic poisoning of the body by the poisonous products of cell function, consisting chiefly of carbonic acid gas, which could not pass off through the skin because the paint closed the pores.
This case shows how poisonous to the body is the carbon dioxide eliminated through the lungs and skin. It also shows that the lungs are greatly aided by the skin in the elimination of this deadly gas.
EXHALATION
Professor H. H. Sheldon, New York University, erected an apparatus in the Times Square theatrical district that drew in air at roof-level. In one week the apparatus cleaned 341,250,000 cubic feet of air, from which it removed 12 cubic feet of solid matter, composed of dust, soot and tar that weighed 37 pounds.
The constant inhalation of such air results in a coating on the walls of the lungs, and in time one finds it hard to breathe. One puffs and pants from a little exertion, gasps for breath, and may have sensations of choking.
All the protection one has against polluted air is exhalation. The more vigorous the exhalation, the more poisoned air is cast out of the lungs. But this can accomplish nothing if one lives and labors in poisoned air.
Man’s Higher Consciousness Page 22
