which are not those of a food, but of a poison.
19. Many people who would not drink strong or distilled liquors, think that they will suffer no harm if they use only wine, beer, or cider. This is a great mistake. These liquids contain alcohol, as do all fermented drinks. A person will become drunk or intoxicated by drinking wine, beer, or cider—only a larger quantity is required to produce the same effect as rum or whiskey.
20. Another very serious thing to be thought of is that if a person forms the habit of drinking wine, cider, or other fermented drinks, he becomes so fond of the effect they produce that he soon wants some stronger drink, and thus he is led to use whiskey or other strong liquors. On this account it is not safe to use any kind of alcoholic drinks, either fermented or distilled. The only safe plan is to avoid the use of every sort of stimulating or intoxicating drinks.
21. It has been found by observation that those persons who use intoxicating drinks are not so healthy as those who do not use them, and, as a rule, they do not live so long.
22. This is found to be true not only of those who use whiskey and other strong liquors, but also of those who use fermented drinks, as wine and beer. Beer drinkers are much more likely to suffer from disease than those who are strictly temperate. It is often noticed by physicians that when a beer-drinker becomes sick or meets with an accident, he does not recover so readily as one who uses no kind of alcoholic drinks.
23. Alcoholic drinks not only make people unhealthy and shorten their lives, but they are also the cause of much poverty and crime and an untold amount of misery.
1. Water is the only thing that will satisfy thirst.
2. In going through our bodies, water washes out many impurities. We also need water to soften our food.
3. The purest water is the best. Impure water causes sickness.
4. Good water has no color, taste, or odor.
5. Tea and coffee are not good drinks. They are very injurious to children, and often do older persons much harm.
6. Alcohol is made by fermentation.
7. Pure alcohol and strong liquors are made by distillation.
8. Alcohol is not a food, it is a poison. It kills plants and animals, and is very injurious to human beings.
9. Even the moderate use of alcoholic drinks produces disease and shortens life.
CHAPTER VII
VENUS'S FLY-TRAP.
1. Did you ever see a Venus's fly-trap? This curious plant grows in North Carolina. It is called a fly-trap because it has on each of its leaves something like a steel-trap, by means of which it catches flies. You can see one of these traps in the picture. When a fly touches the leaf, the trap shuts up at once, and the poor fly is caught and cannot get away. The harder it tries to escape, the more tightly the trap closes upon it, until after a time it is crushed to death.
2. But we have yet to learn the most curious thing about this strange plant, which seems to act so much like an animal. If we open the leaf after a few days, it will be found that the fly has almost entirely disappeared. The fly has not escaped, but it has been dissolved by a fluid formed inside of the trap, and the plant has absorbed a portion of the fly. In fact, it has really eaten it. The process by which food is dissolved and changed so that it can be absorbed and may nourish the body, is called digestion (di-ges´-tion).
THE DIGESTIVE TUBE.
3. The Venus's fly-trap has a very simple way of digesting its food. Its remarkable little trap serves it as a mouth to catch and hold its food, and as a stomach to digest it. The arrangement by which our food is digested is much less simple than this. Let us study the different parts by which this wonderful work is done.
4. The Digestive Tube.—The most important part of the work of digesting our food is done in a long tube within the body, called the digestive tube or canal.
5. This tube is twenty-five or thirty feet long in a full-grown man; but it is so coiled up and folded away that it occupies but little space. It begins at the mouth, and ends at the lower part of the trunk. The greater part of it is coiled up in the abdomen.
6. The Mouth.—The space between the upper and the lower jaw is called the mouth. The lips form the front part and the cheeks the sides. At the back part are three openings. One, the upper, leads into the nose. There are two lower openings. One of these leads into the stomach, and the other leads to the lungs. The back part of the mouth joins the two tubes which lead from the mouth to the lungs and the stomach, and is called the throat. The mouth contains the tongue and the teeth.
THE TEETH.
7. The Teeth.—The first teeth, those which come when we are small children, are called temporary or milk teeth. We lose these teeth as the jaws get larger and the second or permanent teeth take their place. There are twenty teeth in the first set, and thirty-two in the second. Very old persons sometimes have a third set of teeth.
SALIVARY GLANDS.
8. The Salivary (sal´-i-vary) Glands.—There are three pairs of salivary glands. They form a fluid called the saliva (sa-li´-va). It is this fluid which moistens the mouth at all times. When we eat or taste something which we like, the salivary glands make so much saliva that we sometimes say the mouth waters. One pair of the salivary glands is at the back part of the lower jaw, in front of the ears. The other two pairs of glands are placed at the under side of the mouth. The saliva produced by the salivary glands is sent into the mouth through little tubes called ducts.
9. The Gullet.—At the back part of the throat begins a narrow tube, which passes down to the stomach. This tube is about nine inches long. It is called the gullet, food-pipe, or œsophagus (e-soph´-a-gus).
10. The Stomach.—At the lower end of the œsophagus the digestive tube becomes enlarged, and has a shape somewhat like a pear. This is the stomach. In a full-grown person the stomach is sufficiently large to hold about three pints. At each end of the stomach is a narrow opening so arranged that it can be opened or tightly closed, as may be necessary. The upper opening allows the food to pass into the stomach, the lower one allows it to pass out into the intestines. This opening is called the pylorus (py-lo´-rus), or gate-keeper, because it closes so as to keep the food in the stomach until it is ready to pass out.
11. In the membrane which lines the stomach there are many little pocket-like glands, in which a fluid called the gastric juice is formed. This fluid is one of the most important of all the fluids formed in the digestive canal.
GASTRIC GLAND.
12. The Intestine(in-tes´-tine).—At the lower end of the stomach the digestive canal becomes narrow
