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THE COMmiliiMAN
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SECOND  EDITION.
 THE   COMPOSITE   MAN




                     AS COMPREHENDED IN





                    FOURTEEN



 ANATOMICAL  IMPERSONATIONS





                             BY





         E. H. PRATT,  A.M.,  M.D., LL.D.
                it *

Professor of Orificial Surgery in The Chicago Homeopathic Medical College; Attending
    Surgeon to the Cook County Hospital; Member the American Institute of
        Homeopathy, the Illinois State Homeopathic Association; Honorary
           Member of the Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, Michigan,
              Wisconsin,  Nebraska and Minnesota State
                Homeopathic  Institutes, and Editor of
                  "The Journal of Orificial Surgery."






      Illustrations  by  Dr.  Frederick H. Williams
CHICAGO, ILL
     1901
1 
           3

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            I9ck



r 6m Ato.  5S4 2.^  »lo.' 2.
       COPYRIGHT, 1901,
      By E. H. PRATT, M.D. 
CONTENTS.
The Bony Man.
The Muscular Man.
The Arterial Man.
The Venous Man.
The Lymphatic Man.
The Skin Man.
The Connective Tissue Man.
The Cerebro-Spinal  Man.
The Tubular Man.
The Sympathetic Man.
The Organic Man.
The Conscious Man.
The Sub-Conscious Man.
The Composite Man. 
 
PREFACE TO THE  FIRST  EDITION.
     About twenty-five years ago the author was an ardent stu-
 dent of anatomy, and was ambitious to popularize the subject,
 believing that an intimate knowledge of the  human organism
 would prove to be  of  practical  service,  not  only to medical
 men, but to people generally, and with this end in view, for a
 number  of years,  he  delivered a  series of  popular lectures
 on the structure of the human body, in a considerable number
 of communities adjacent to the city of Chicago.  The  audi-
 ences were always appreciative, but the task proved  too ardu-
 ous to be long continued, and the  hope of  popularizing the
 subject by means of lectures at least died out, until it seemed
 necessary of late years, for humanity's sake, to aid in unifying
 the medical thought of the times.
     Practical medicine has been split up into various special-
 ties, each full of its own importance.  Manual therapeutics has
 achieved a widespread appreciation of  its own merits, and sug-
 gestive therapeutics has grown to such  substantial proportions
 as to clamor for universal  recognition,  while  the  old, time-
 honored  temple of  medicine has industriously striven to meet
 the ever-changing  and increasing wants  of  humanity to the
 best of its ability.  Each means  of  cure  has its appropriate
 field of  operation, and  all  possible remedial  measures that
 have been found helpful  in the healing of  the sick  are sorely
 needed in the great campaign of humanity against disease and
 premature decay.   There should  be no rivalry between the
various methods  of cure, but, on the contrary,  they should
enjoy mutual appreciation and  helpfulness.   This  desirable 
state of affairs can be attained only when  the nature of  man,
both physical and spiritual, is better understood.  So long as
one set of healers has a care merely for the physical part of
the human being, ignoring, as far as possible, all  consideration
of his  spiritual nature and necessities, and another set refuses
to recognize the claims of man's material part, but hopes to
rescue humanity from  its  aches  and pains by purely psycho-
logical  processes, sick humanity can have little hope of per-
fect and permanent  recovery.  But when  the dual  nature of
man becomes universally recognized  and the fact that, so far
as his present existence is concerned, he  is not a mere body
nor a mere soul, but  both, and that each acts and reacts upon
the other in both  health  and disease, becomes  universally
appreciated, practical medicine,  manual therapeutics and sug-
gestive therapeutics can  sit down in   friendly  counsel  with
some hope  of  successfully solving  the  great problem  of
humanity's emancipation from the thralldom of sickness and
suffering.
    Anatomy is a long, hard and difficult study to master, and
it is usually found so dull and complicated  as to  be forbidding
to people generally.  Even  the indifferent knowledge obtained
on the  subject by medical  students is  secured  only by long
continued, patient application.  Then, too, in accordance with
the methods of the various text books, the  body  is taken apart
for purposes  of observation, but the unifying of the various
structures into a complete whole is left to the imagination of
the student, which too frequently proves to be unequal to the
task.   Nor is the study of anatomy as it is now carried on by
any means complete, for  it ignores  all consideration of the
two  spiritual   forms,  the   conscious and the  sub-conscious
shapes without which what remains  is  but a  corpse—a man,
indeed, with  the man left out.   The object of these imper-
sonations, therefore, has been threefold.   First, to render the
study of anatomy sufficiently simple and novel to be attractive,
in hopes that it may be popularized; second, to secure recog-.
nition, on the part of  those who  heretofore have been inclined 
to overlook them, of the existence of  man's spiritual parts as
essential elements in  all  that  concerns  his every possible
condition;  third, to unify the conceptions of the various parts
of the human being which  are  usually prone to suffer  a  too
isolated consideration.  While the impersonations have been
presented in a simple and  light-hearted style, for purposes of
interest and easy comprehension, they will be found anatomi-
cally correct in every detail.
    With the earnest hope that they may be found  of  some
slight interest to everybody who reads them, they are respect-
fully surrendered for public inspection and consideration, with
the assurance that if they prove to be in some degree helpful
to those who are seeking acquaintanceship with  the structure
of the human being, it will be an easy matter to render them
still more  so by adding to their thoroughness and  compre-
hensiveness.                            E. H. PRATT. 
 
PREFACE TO THE  SECOND  EDITION.
    The  ready  recognition and warm-hearted  appreciation
accorded to the first edition of The Composite Man is a source
of great comfort to the author.  The book has been welcomed
by students of anatomy and by practitioners of medicine all
over  the country, but what is more, by the laity.   The
advancement of  the people in a knowledge of everything that
pertains  to their own organization and its  necessities is  the
greatest  inspiration and encouragement to  sincere healers of
all kinds and the  surest protection against the prevalence of
fraud, quackery  and every kind of imposition.
    A knowledge of the whole human being sufficiently thor-
ough  to  permit an intelligent  interpretation of all  its  possible
conditions  of health and disease, as well as the  proper course
to  pursue  when disorders  arise, is  so absolutely  essential
as a safeguard against every variety  of delusion  and imposi-
tion as  to  be a  necessary part of everyone's education.   For
this reason The  Composite Man is ambitious for popular favor.
It hopes to find  a welcome in the homes of the people them-
selves and in their high schools.   Its influence will be found
to be not only enlightening, but refining.
    A large  part  of  our  miseries, agonies and  unhappiness
generally comes from misunderstandings which are mainly the
result of ignorance.   What we need, therefore, is  less blame,
less punishment,  less  suffering and  more enlightenment, in
order that our efforts at  helpfulness to all who are in trouble
may be  more intelligently directed and  more effective.
    A careful study  of The  Composite  Man  will not  only
explain many of the  things we would  have different, but, by
natural  inference, clearly point the way "to their correction.
It is meant to  be everybody's book  and  its dedication  is to.
humanity.                                           __
                                          E.  H. PRATT. 
 
 
"~4r<^
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The Bony Man.
Drawn by Frederick H. Williams, 
SERIES OF  IMPERSONATIONS.
             impersonation NO. I.—the bony  man.
 Ladies and Gentlemen :
    First of all, let me entreat you not to be startled at my appearance.
 All of my associates—the muscles, blood vessels,  lymphatics, nerves,
 skin, areolar tissue  and organs, and more than all, the unseen forms
 of life upon whom we all depended—have been taken away from
 me,  and I alone  am left.  I am merely the human skeleton, and un-
 der  the circumstances of my late bereavement  necessarily a little
 thin and ghastly in appearance.  Perhaps I  was one of  your best
 friends, but,  separated from my fellow  human shapes, who rounded
 me out and made up my deficiencies of contour, you would scarcely
 be expected  to recognize me.  I  grant you my  cheeks are hollow,
 my eyes  sunken, my mouth as extravagantly large  as my ears are
 small, my nose somewhat abbreviated, my pate bald, my  neck long
 and  slender, my  collar-bones rather prominent, my ribs  so thin that
 they can be  easily  counted, my waist extremely pinched, my hips
 expanding, my  arms  and legs  more like pipe-stems than extremi-
 ties, my  fingers and  toes much longer than  perhaps you thought
 they were; but I am not proud,  just honest, and I want you to know
 me as I am.
    I  am now forty years of age, and  hence  at  my  best.  I am a
 male, as  you can readily determine by my appearance.   A female
 skeleton is  not as tall as  I am.  Then, too, her head is smaller, her
 chest is narrower and, by the way, is apt to be pinched  in its lower
 part, because, as you  know, she usually dresses tighter around the
 waist than  man  does, and in that way spoils  her form.  Her prac-
 tice  in this respect  is reprehensible, for aside from  deforming her
 it interferes with.her freedom  of respiration,  and so she does not
 live  as long  as  I do.  Of  course, there  are  exceptions,  but I am
 speaking on  general principles.  Her pelvis  is broader and not so
 deep.  This is no fault of hers, but is  made so to  adapt her for
child-bearing, from which  I  am  excused.  Then, too,  the surface
of her bones  is  smooth, compared to  mine.   They look prettier,
11 
perhaps,  but mine  are  stronger.   The  various  protuberances and
ridges which roughen my surface have been developed by  muscular
action, for I am the bread winner of the family,  and my work is
heavier than hers.   Then, too, I am out of doors more than she is,
and am naturally more  vigorous.  To  be sure, she is built on the
same general plan,  but you can readily notice the  points of differ-
ence between us as just mentioned if you ever chance  to see us side
by side, and thus have a fair  opportunity to look us over and com-
pare us.
   You may think  I am  a  little stiff  and awkward  in appear-
ance, but  that is because my good  friend, the  muscular man,  has
been taken away from me  and I cannot move.  But I am not so
stiff as I look.  Instead of being just one queer shaped bone, as you
might think, I  am  composed of  two hundred  and eight separate
pieces, all jointed together, and so ingeniously placed as to consti-
tute the human form which has the pleasure of  addressing you on
the present  occasion.  You  may think that my head is solid, but it
is not.  It is merely  a box for  the brains which I  used to have. They
are all gone now, but you can  see something of what I have been
by what I am.  My brain, you see, was  so delicately constructed as
to  require complete protection  at every point.  Brain bruise  is always
such a serious matter that I was built closed in  in this way for its
prevention.  My chest walls  used to contain the heart  and lungs,
which are also  sensitive organs,  but they  required motion  on  my
part as  well as protection,  and hence my ribs do  not touch.   My
breastplate used to protect them in front, my dorsal vertebrae at the
back, but  my arms could guard against danger on my sides, so that
I could have my ribs raised  in breathing and at the  same time afford
a fair protection for the important organs which I once contained.
   My chest used to have a floor, but it was merely a muscular struct-
ure that was removed with the rest of the muscular  man,  so that as I
appear to  you now you might  wonder how my chest could hold any-
thing at all  with such a  big hole in  the  bottom of  it.  At  present I
have no abdomen, but just the backbone which used to support one.
You would  scarcely be able to  guess its normal dimensions by my
present  shape.  But I can stand straight just the same, because my
spine is left.  The reason my  hips flare so is because they have been
pulled out by muscular movements.   And it is  a  'good thing that
they are so, for while my true pelvis is more or  less circular  and
complete,  thus  affording protection  for the pelvic organs that it
used to  contain, the flaring  of the upper part, or  false pelvis as it is
                              12 
called, served very well to support much of the weight of the intes-
tines which used to rest upon them.  My legs and arms are nothing
but levers, by means of which the muscles which were once attached
to them could move me about at their pleasure.
   If you wish to know how hard I am just feel of me and see.  1
was built in this way for practical purposes; for aside from furnish-
ing substantial protection for the organs which my various cavities
contained, I had to furnish leverage for the muscles whose office it
was to move me about as they were directed.   I am a strong char:
acter, for my office has been a hard one to fill,  and a  good deal has
been expected of me in the way of  durability  and firmness.  I am
indeed the physical embodiment of character, and I had to be strong
to fulfill my  destiny.
   The teeth which my jaws contain are even harder than I am, but
they do not belong to  me, being constructed after the skin pattern.
We are not in the same class.   We are both of us hard, but I am
bone, while they are nothing but skin appendages.  They were left
in my jaws simply because I clung to them closely when I was sepa-
rated from the rest of  my fellows.  As a matter of pride, I am glad
they were left, for my mouth is large enough  as it is, and if these
had been also taken away it would have added much to my disfig-
urement, for the sockets which contain them  are ragged  and un-
sightly after my teeth are gone.
   My spine is made up of twenty-six  pieces, placed  one on top of
the other, so as to give it the  appearance of one  continuous bone.
Each of the bones  has a hole in it, so that when they are placed in
their proper relations my backbone is furnished with  a  canal which
extends throughout its entire length, with the exception of the lower
bone, called  the  coccyx.   In  many of the lower animals the tail
which corresponds to  my  coccyx is  also hollow.   But  this is un-
necessary in my case, as when I am padded with the softer parts you
would scarcely realize  that I have a tail bone.   The  tail serves dif-
ferent purposes in  different animals.  As  for myself,  my coccyx
is for the attachment of muscles whose office it is to close the floor of
my pelvis.   This coccyx or tail bone of mine  does not seem at all
necessary to my usefulness, and in reality I am a  little ashamed of
it, for comparative  anatomists have taken advantage of the fact that
I have such an appendage and make use of this as an  argument that
I came of lowly origin, notwithstanding the fact that my aspirations
are high.   Then, too, this coccyx  of  mine is frequently  the seat of
pain,  especially after it has  been badly  bruised,  and is then  fre-
                               13 
quently removed and I seem to get on just as well without it, and
indeed better, for the suffering  it caused  me  is usually at once
stopped by its  removal.
   Please, ladies  and gentlemen,  do not imagine because I appear
such  a hard  character that  I am altogether  stupid, inactive, and
insensible.  My gentler brothers  and  myself are but individuals in
a family banded  together for a common purpose, each one of us
having our peculiar duties.   But  we are so closely united as to be
indispensable to each other, so that the joys and sorrows of any one
of us  are shared to a greater or less degree by all of us.  Of course,
each one has troubles of his own of a private nature, but at the same
time we are each of us pretty well aware of what the other members
of the family are experiencing.  We are good friends,  my brother
forms and myself. We started life together; we lived together and
came  to an end at the same time; we ate and drank together, and
waked and slept  together,  and worked and played together.   We
likewise have felt  our sickness in common.  We all had one common
plan of growth, development, repair, decay  and  burial.   We never
differed with each other, for the  brotherly love which  binds us to-
gether was too deep for disagreement.  Our purposes  of  life  were
all in  common, and hence our universal aim was to be mutually self-
sustaining, although each one played his own part individually.
   If you will examine my surface carefully you will find that  I am
all full of small holes, so that you  would have ample excuse for con-
ceiving me to be pretty thoroughly worm eaten.  But let me disabuse
you of this idea at once, for it is through  these small openings that
the soft and delicate tendrils of my immediate associates have pene-
trated my structure in its every part, so as to really make me one of
them.  Arteries, veins, nerves, lymphatics, areolar tissue, and, in fact,
all the members of my family, penetrate my tissues by way of my
pores, so that I am closer entwined by them and united with  them
than you might suppose if you had not carefully examined my mi-
nute anatomy. Of course, now that my family are all scattered, and
I am practically dead, yielding up  my structure by piecemeal as I am
gradually disintegrated and dissolved into the elements out of which
I was originally constructed, I am quite  different from my normal
active self.  If you saw or break any part of me in two I will not
bleed, or suffer, or inflame, or in  any manner attempt to repair the
damage.  But it was quite different when I was alive.  An injury
then would  have  made me  sweat blood,  suffer  untold  a^ony, and
14 
bestir myself to repair  any damage done me as  far as lay in  my
power, and  in  this work all my brothers  would have helped me.
Perhaps  you fancy that I  was not alive, but  in that you are mis-
taken.  During that time so long as I was in good health I never
obtruded my self-consciousness upon the other members of the fam-
ily to which I  belonged.   But when it came to sickness  I  always
found that I could do my full share in disturbing the  harmony of
the family.  My ways were always a little slow, so that I never  ob-
tained my perfect  manhood until I was nearly forty years old.  But
in sickness, as  in  development, I  was always very persevering in
my ways, and  when I  once started on a career  of trouble I could
hold out about  as  long, and perhaps a  little longer, than the others.
   There is little in the line of disease that  I could not get up if oc-
casion required. If I was not  properly fed I would get too soft, and
in this way I could make the person  whose shape  depended more
upon myself than  I have the credit for, stoop-shouldered, or hunch-
backed,  or  bow-legged, or knock-kneed, or in  many other ways
badly deformed, or I could go to the opposite extreme and become
so brittle that my  bones would break upon  the slightest excuse, and
if this happened, I could keep the whole body confined until I was
all right again, for when I was off duty it was perfectly useless for
the rest of the  family to attempt to attend to their regular business.
I could  get  up ulcerations on my surface, which were known as
spots of caries, or one of my  bones could die en masse, a condition
known as necrosis.   I  could inflame and degenerate into abscesses
just as well as anybody else.   I was subject to cancer, and consump-
tion, and syphilis,  and  rheumatism, and almost  anything else that
was liable to attack the other  members of my family.  Of course I
was not  so easily  disturbed as the softer tissues, because my resist-
ance was greater.  I was  a stronger character.   But if I did  con-
tract disease I  could  make enough trouble to compensate fully for
my slowness in succumbing  to it.  You see, although  I was  not
easily roused, I had an  exceedingly bad temper when I was, and the
family usually had a lively time with me before I  got quieted down.
   The discovery  of the X-ray has been much to my advantage, for
in substance I  am  so much denser than my fellows that they have
not yet succeeded in making me transparent, and the shadows which
I cast in a skiagraph disclose my  outlines  perfectly, whereas there
is not another one of the human shapes with which I am connected
that enjoys this distinction. When any of  my bones are  broken, or
15 
diseased, or out of place, surgeons are able to find it out now much
quicker and more surely than before, and consequently I am able to
obtain more speedy relief than formerly.
   I was just as proud as my brother tissues, for I was an indispensa-
ble member of the family, and what affected them affected me, and,
on the other hand, whatever affected me I can tell you affected them
also.   In fact, when I was really in trouble and entered  my com-
plaints at headquarters, I always commanded a hearing,  and very
little  other business could be attended to until  my wrongs were
righted.
   In all probability, when you meet the other members of the family
to which I belong you will feel a deeper interest in what they have to
say of themselves because they can talk faster than I can, and perhaps
tell their story better.  At  the same time,  my own inner conscious-
ness  and self-respect compels me to  insist, ladies  and gentlemen,
upon my full share of  recognition when it comes to making up an
invoice of the various bodily  structures that enter into the composi-
tion  of a human being.   I am not dead in a  living body, but as much
alive as its other shapes.  I own  that I am not independent of my
fellows, and honestly confess that I cannot live without them, so that
as you see me on the present occasion alone, stripped of my kindred,
the pallor of death is upon me, and I am talking to you in the dumb
language of mere appearances.  What I  am, therefore, is but a mute
witness of  what I have been, and to do  me justice you  will have to
imagine  me  tingling with  whatever sensations  may  have swept
through  the entire body, think of me ruddy with its life currents,
requiring constant nourishment for repair and funeral trains for my
waste, as, like the other tissues, I have all my  life been dying and
repairing by piecemeal, and as the whole body has been  healthy and
happy, I, too, have enjoyed life.  When  it has been sick  and  sorrow-
ing,  I have likewise suffered.
   I wish I knew the name of the writer who dedicated  some verses
to my memory and pinned them  to one of my kind in the British
Museum, for. few writers, especially poets,  have given me the promi-
nence which my important office in the human economy has seemed
to me to merit.  But I appreciate the compliment of this meritorious
composition so highly  that I will close  my remarks by quoting the
verses:
                       TO A SKELETON.
             Behold this ruin!  'Twas a skull,
             Once of ethereal spirit full.
             This narrow cell was Life's retreat,
             This space was Thought's mysterious seat.
                               16 
              What beauteous visions filled this spot,
              What dreams of pleasure long forgot?
              Nor hope, nor joy, nor love, nor fear,
              Have left one trace of record here.

              Beneath this mouldering canopy
              Once shone the bright and busy eye;
              But start not at the dismal void—
              If social  love that eye employed.
              If with no lawless fire it gleamed,
              But through the dews of kindness beamed,
              That eye shall be forever bright
              When stars and sun are sunk in night.

              Within this hollow cavern hung                 ■,
              The ready, swift, and tuneful tongue;
              If Falsehood's honey it disdained,
              And when it could not  praise was chained;
              If bold in Virtue's cause it spoke,
              Yet gentle concord never broke—
              This silent tongue shall plead for thee
              When time unveils eternity!

              Say, did  these fingers delve the mine?
              Or with the envied rubies shine?
              To hew the rock or wear a gem
              Can little now avail to them.
              But if the page of truth they sought,
              Or comfort to the mourner brought,
              These hands a richer meed shall claim
              Than all  that wait on Wealth and Fame.

              Avail it whether bare or shod,
              These feet the paths of  duty  trod?
              If from the bowers of ease they fled,
              To seek Affliction's humble shed;
              If Grandeur's guilty bribe they spurned,
              And home to Virtue's cot returned—
              These feet with angel wings shall vie,
              And tread the palace of the sky!
                                            —Anonymous.

    Thanking you, ladies and gentlemen, for your presence and kind

attention, I will detain you no longer.   I am but one  of a number of

human shapes  that will claim your attention.   These will  present

themselves to you in  due order, and  in closing  I bespeak  for  my

brothers  as  attentive consideration as you have so kindly extended

to me, and when the story of our entire family of human shapes is all

told, you will find the separate descriptions but  brief and inadequate

chapters  in the life story of the Composite Man.

    The next speaker, whom I will now leave to  introduce himself,

as I have had the privilege of doing, will be the  muscular man. 
 
 
The Muscular Man.
Drawn by Frederick H. Williams. 
IMPERSONATION  No. 2.
                       the muscular man.
 Ladies and Gentlemen :
    I am the<muscular man.  My bony brother promised that I should
 tell you something of myself on the present occasion, and not to dis-
 appoint him, for we  were always great chums, I shall do the best I
 can to entertain you for some time, although I am ill conditioned for
 the effort.
    The fact of the matter is, I feel greatly embarrassed.  This is the
 first time I was ever separated from the brotherhood of human shapes
 like my own, which go to make up the composite  structure known as
 the human being, and now that I  am entirely alone I do not feel at all
 like myself, I can  assure you, and never before have I so completely
 realized my dependence upon my brothers.
   I  am naked, hollow, motionless, bloodless, nerveless and senseless.
 I feel completely subdued and humbled.  My pride is all gone, for I
 am now as helpless as a child and withal utterly useless, except, per-
 haps, to point a  moral ruinous to the spirit of vanity,  pride and 'self-
 conceit.   I find  that  instead of being a source of power, as I once
 supposed  myself to be, I was merely  its instrument  of  expression.
 You  see in  all our family matters I was  personally responsible  for
 every possible form of activity, internal and external, except that of
 chemical action,  and it was quite natural that I should get an exagger-
 ated idea of my own importance.  I did all the  walking, running,
 jumping,  climbing, descending, all the bending, straightening, twist-
 ing, turning, all  the laughing, sobbing, sneezing, coughing, swallow-
 ing,  talking, all  the beckoning, signaling,  writing, cutting,  sewing,
 working,  playing,  all the  breathing,  circulating and  propelling,
whether of solids, liquids,  or gases; indeed, all the supply trains and
 funeral trains of the organization  of which  I was a part, were run by
myself.  If an attitude was to be  changed, I had  to do the moving;
if any type of bodily function was to be performed, I was called upon
to accomplish it.
   To perform all these varieties of uses  in an  orderly and syste-
19 
matic manner, I was constructed with two kinds of muscular fibers.
One of these constituted the most of my bulk, and was of what was
called the voluntary type.  By means of these voluntary fibers I could
race and wrestle with the rest of the world, or carry out in every
possible manner the orders  of the individual in whose service I was
employed.  My orders for action rested purely with  the head of the
family, and whatever I was  bid by him to do I did my best to accom-
plish.  I grew  strong in my service,  for exercise always increased
my power, and I had enough of it, I can assure you.  I would start
out early in the morning, as soon as  the family was awake, and after
performing the toilet of the body according to orders, would rush
into the business of the day  as energetically  as  I was bid.  Some-
times I had an easy time of it, but as  a rule I was greatly overworked,
and by bedtime, in spite of all that was  done to strengthen and stimu-
late and care for me, I would become  so fagged out that I could go
no further, and as there was no one  else to execute orders for physi-
cal activity  except myself,  I would put  the  whole  family, myself
included, to bed and refuse point blank all obedience to further or-
ders until I  had had a good night's rest.   Much more than  I could
accomplish was always expected of me, but I tried to be patient with
it all, and invariably did the  best I  could  to render  faithful service
in everything that was demanded of  me.
    Whenever sickness  prevailed of  course I  suffered with the
other  members of  the  household,  and  was  excused  from my
customary   occupation  whatever  it  might  be.  At such times
none of  us could  work,   and we  simply  did as  our   circum-
stances and  condition would permit.  Upon  the  ushering in of
convalescence I was put to work again as usual, only we  were all
of us, I think, a little more  careful after such an experience  to avoid
its repetition.  In my younger days  I was as ignorant and foolhardy
as my kindred shapes, and was liable to go to extremes and strive on
the slightest provocation to achieve  the impossible.  But bumps and
bruises and failures and disappointments  and disasters of all kinds
soon outlined clearly enough what could be expected of me, and as
time went on I was treated with more consideration.   On the other
hand, if there was any fun  going on I was always in it, in  fact was
the  prime mover,  as without my service  hilarity might be  felt but
could not get so far as physical expression.  Smothered  mirth is
not very jolly anyway, and if I had no hand  in it I  knew what was
going on all the time,  and did not feel that  I had  lost anything in
missing credit for it.
20 
    As for sickness, although the individuals of our family each had
personal peculiarities, yet we sympathized with each other so thor-
oughly that it always became more or less of a family affliction when-
ever it broke out.  I do not feel like speaking for the entire family,
but there were  some kinds of sickness toward which I felt an especi-
ally strong personal aversion.  For instance, there was rheumatism.
It may not be considered very dangerous, but it is invariably distress-
ing and annoying as well.  When it was located in the joints of the
bony man I had to keep just as quiet as I could, for every move that
I  made  seemed to distress  the whole family,  and  yet confinement
was always weakening and wearing-upon my nature.  I was almost
as  bad when rheumatism selected my  nervous brother for its victim,
for although whatever action I might indulge in did not set up the
general disturbance which  was aroused when the same thing oc-
curred in  rheumatic affections of the joints, nevertheless if I was
at all active the trouble got gradually worse, until at last I found that
I must remain  perfectly quiet until the disease was mastered.  When
the attack of rheumatism was directly personal, I was then as help-
less as a child until the disease abated.  At such times I enjoyed the
full sympathy  of  all the members of  the family, and  nothing was
expected of me until I fully recovered.
    There  were a few diseases in  which  I was called upon to do
very painful service, for which   I  felt  in  no  wise  responsible,
for personally  I  was all right, only  as I  suffered  sympathetically.
For  instances, in epilepsy,  tetanus, and  sometimes as a result of
some  form  of  intestinal  irritation   or   kidney  disease,  I  was
commanded  to  institute  such  violent  and  spasmodic  contrac-
tions  as   to throw  the  whole  body  into   violent  convulsions,
which were  always agonizing,  and dangerous.  I was  never my
own master, however, and always  did as I  was  bid.  But sometimes
my duties  seemed almost suicidal.  It was  a great  relief  when such
storms had passed, and I could be permitted  to resume  my  custo-
mary equilibrium.  I was always very  sensitive to strains and bruises
and toxines of  all  kinds, and I was also liable to cancer.  But I am
pleased to  tell you that I did not have consumption, although I was
by  no means exempt from such a possibility.   A cold  usually stif-
fened me, and I was always at my best when more or less  heated up.
Too protracted  and violent exercise frequently made me cramp, and
sometimes  I could not stop it and my tendons had to be cut in order
to restore the body to its normal shape.
    The venous and arterial men  had  no more  to do with me than
21 
was  necessary  for  my  personal  well-being, except that in many
places  I  afforded them  protection from  outside dangers.  For  in-
stance, the great aorta passed between the crura of the diaphragm
and the inferior vena cava pierced  the diaphragm  itself.   But the
fibers of  this muscle were so arranged that in their  time of contrac-
tion they would not compress either of these blood  streams, but on
the contrary permit them to be well opened so that their functions
were not interfered with.  By prolonged  spasmodic  contraction I
frequently interfered  seriously  with the  normal circulation of the
blood,  and in many places about the head and trunk,  especially the
spine, and in some places also along the extremities, my relation with
the blood stream was such that when I  suffered,  in any of these
places, undue and marked muscular contraction, the bodily commerce
was so seriously interfered with  that I was prone to cause diseases of
various kinds, which were sure  to last until my fibers, by the aid of
electricity, manipulation, drugs, or some  other efficient agent, were
relieved of their contraction and restored to a normal condition.
   This  statement  applies with equal force to  the cerebro-spinal
man.  I had little to do with the  two  nervous men, the cerebro-spinal,
and the sympathetic.  The cerebro-spinal man mingled in my tissues
as a rule simply enough to keep me in communication with the rest
of the  human being.  The pneumogastric nerve, However, pierced
my diaphragm.  The spinal accessory nerve passed through  my
sterno-cleido-mastoid muscle on either side, the entire lumbar plexus
of nerves, which had so much to do with the pelvic walls and viscera,
lay imbedded in the meshes of  my  psoas  magnus muscle on either
side, and  beside these conspicuous examples I was repeatedly pierced
in different parts of my anatomy by multitudes of smaller nerve
trunks  of the cerebro-spinal man, to say  nothing of the multitudes
of large nerves which ran along  in the grooves between, and in many
cases beneath my muscles.  Undue and prolonged contraction of my
fibers at  any point  where it  rendered  nerve impingement possible
worked untold  mischef  to the function of the nerves involved  and
gave rise to functional derangements and organic pathology to such
a varied extent as to entirely deceive many an accomplished diagnos-
tician as to the real cause of the disorder.
   But perhaps I have said enough of my afflictions.   I simply wish
to call  attention to the fact that whereas  from my relationship with
my fellows I was made to suffer more or less with whatever disorder
they might, any or all of them, become  afflicted, at the  same time
personal afflictions peculiarly my own might in turn work mischief to
22 
the rest of the family.  Our family was always and at all times mutu-
ally dependent  and considerate.   We always found  that brotherly
love was best for us all, so we had our joys and sorrows in common.
   It is not necessary for me to say anything in this connection of the
sympathetic man or the other members of the brotherhood, as  each
of these shapes will speak for himself later on, and will amply supply
any omission of importance which may characterize my remarks on
the present occasion.  Perhaps I ought  to mention,  however, that
although the bony  man and myself were especially good friends, not
by any means belittling thereby my intimate relationship with the
entire family of human shapes, there is one of my brothers who was
more to  me  even  than the bony man, and that  was  the  areolar or
connective tissue man.  In fact, so closely united were the areolar
man and myself that although on the present occasion I am appear-
ing before you  as  purely the muscular man,  separated entirely  from
all my kindred, such in reality is not the exact state  of the case.  I
could  tear myself loose  from the bony  man, become disentangled
from the arterial, venous, cerebro-spinal, sympathetic,  lymphatic, and
all the other men except one.  Do you know I had to coax the areolar
man to stay by me, or I could not have preserved my present shape.
That faithful fellow has hugged me like a brother from childhood
up.   He has enclosed my  every fiber, indeed pierced my fibers and
enwrapped my fibrillar, and going yet further, has constructed for me
my very cell walls, without which  all my contents would be  dissi-
pated.
    This areolar man has other duties to perform than  that of sustain-
ing and enveloping me, and in due time he will speak for himself, as
the bony man has done and I am now doing.   At the same time I
thought  it proper  in this connection to at least mention my dearest
physical brother upon whose faithful service and proximity my very
shape  depends.  He's a jolly fellow,  I can tell you, and if his native
modesty does not  prevent him doing himself justice,  you are bound
to like him when his turn to entertain comes. The most of the bulk
of this most perfect of human shapes, the areolar or connective tis-
sue man, has been removed before I presented myself before you for
your consideration.  But enough of him  still remains to enable me
to preserve my identity and permit  me the distinguishing feature of
the manly form which  alone entitles me to your audience.   But I
must not bring my remarks to a close  without brief reference to
those of my muscles which are constructed of what is known as the
involuntary fibers, whose office, although less conspicuous than that
                               23 
of the voluntary muscles, is nevertheless of vital importance to the
human structure.
   My voluntary muscles, of which I have already said all  that is
necessary for the purposes of the  present set  of tissue biographies,
may work a part of each twenty-four hours and sleep the rest, pur-
sue occupations, assume relations and positions at the behests of the
erratic and whimsical cerebro-spinal man, thus enabling an individual
to entertain  purposes and strive for their accomplishment, and then
rest.  But my involuntary muscles enjoyed the supreme distinction of
actively executing the entire  bodily commerce.  Their  action was
rhythmical and perpetual throughout the life of the body, their only
periods of rest being the short intervals of their diastole.  Perhaps it
never occurred to you  that the entire bodily commerce  was carried
on by tubular action.   If a drop of sweat appeared upon  the surface
of the skin  it had been squeezed by muscular contraction  out of a
small tube.  If  a drop of oil anointed the surface of the body or the
shaft of a hair, it had been milked to its destination by muscular con-
traction : if saliva reached the mouth, it had been conveyed there from
the salivary  glands by the action of the muscles; after food was once
swallowed, if it passed along the oesophagus to the stomach and along;
down through the entire twenty-six feet of the intestinal track, its pro-
pulsion was accomplished by muscles;  if peptic juice greeted it in
the stomach and pancreatic juice and bile greeted it in the duodenum,
and other digestive products anywhere along the track were mingled
with it, these were all  forwarded by muscular contraction;  if urine
trickled from the cortex through the pyramids into the pelvis of the
kidney, down the ureters into the bladder and out of the urethra at
any time, it  was made to do so by muscular action; if any ovum was
hatched, propelled along the fallopian tube into the uterine cavity, im-
pregnated, and after nine months of gestation, or at any time before,
expelled from the body, this was all accomplished by muscular action ;
if semen was formed by  the testicles,  carried by way of the vas-def-
erens into the prostatic inch, and was ejected by way of the urethra,
all this was  accomplished by muscular action; if mucus was poured
out upon the surface of  any membrane for purposes of  lubrication,
or from  inflammatory action,  this was accomplished by muscular
action;  if air, entering the  nostrils and  passing through the larynx
into the trachea by the  suction of inspiration, was carried on through
the bronchial tubes into the bronchioles and thence into  the air sacs,
it was done by muscular activity; if blood was thrown by the left side
24 
of the heart into the aorta and thus through every branch of this great
tree of life into the sea of the capillaries, and from these was again
collected into the coalescing veins, to be returned to the right auricle
of the heart, pouring thence into the right ventricle, from which it
proceeded into the pulmonary artery and its branches to the capillaries
of the lungs, where it was purified and then passed on into the pulmo-
nary veins which emptied  into the left auricle  of the  heart, from
which it was forced into the left ventricle, all this wonderful circula-
tion of the molten individual was secured by muscular action; if the
lymphatics collected waste  material from  the outskirts  of the body
and conveyed it  into the venous circulation, it was accomplished by
muscular action.  In short, as asserted, all the bodily commerce except
osmosis  was  accomplished by  tubes,  and all  tubes  secured their
vermicular motion by the action of muscular fibers.  These fibers, my
friends, were of the involuntary type. They were non-striated and did
not  obey the commands of the cerebro-spinal man.   The condition
of my voluntary muscles could be told at any time by various methods
of physical exploration. Their condition of contraction and relaxa-
ation,  of atrophy and hypertrophy, of stiffness  or suppleness, could
in most cases be  easily ascertained.
    But my involuntary muscles were hidden deeply in  the recesses of
our human structure, and their  condition could  only  be told  by the
varying degrees  of vitality with which the functions depending upon
their operation were performed.
    I was  proud of my voluntary muscles, for they  made me  con-
scious of  my  manhood, my  freedom, my  personal  prowess.   My
involuntary muscles concerned me more from the mere fact that they
were absolutely essential to my very existence, and indeed to  that of
the entire family.  Perhaps my voluntary part was the bread-winner
—but it was my involuntary part that got the meals and kept us all
alive.   All the supply trains for the growth and repair of bodily
tissues,  and all the funeral trains by which every type of physical
debris was carried away, were managed by my  involuntary muscles.
Vermicular motion,  or peristalsis,  as  it  is otherwise  called, is so
noiseless and unobtrusive as to escape the attention and consideration
which its importance demands at the hands of the medical profession.
My voluntary part  was moved perpetually by  the  cerebro-spinal
system and acted upon the  bones, using them as levers, a mere per-
functory service, by means of which I could adjust myself and family
to other physical existences according to my orders.  But when my
25 
involuntary part was set in motion it acted upon all tubular contents,
which were  sometimes solid, sometimes liquid, sometimes  gaseous,
and its rhythmic operations were essential  to all bodily functions.
   Xow I beg of you, ladies and gentlemen,  that so far as you are
concerned you will see to it that my involuntary part is no longer neg-
lected and that you  will espouse its cause until its importance be-
comes  universally recognized and appreciated.   Artisans, athletes
and physical  laborers of all  kinds will  pay due consideration to my
voluntary fibers, but it will take careful study and extensive  educa-
tion to win a proper respect  for my involuntary part.
   It strikes  me that you deserve great credit for your attention, for
my remarks to you must have been  exceedingly tame,  as  it has been
impossible for me to  enliven  you  with any form of activity.  My vol-
untary muscles  have had nothing to move, for the bony man has left
me. They had no orders to move, for the cerebro-spinal man has also
been disentangled from my meshes.   They had no strength to move,
for it is  some time since the arterial man has furnished them with
nourishment.   (Of course you can see how unnaturally pale I am.)
My involuntary part could not move, for all of the tubes about which
it entwined itself are empty,  and it was never taught to move except
as its fibers were distended by excessive accumulations of some kind
of contents or were irritated. Then, too, the sympathetic man is gone,
and  were my  involuntary  fibers  never  so distended  they  would
merely gap in paralytic helplessness.  You see, therefore, instead  of
being a power,  as I once fancied, I  served but as an instrument of  an
indwelling force, whose existence I ignored because it  did not appeal
to my consciousness.
   Ladies and gentlemen, kindly permit me to introduce to you the
arterial man, who will read you his own biography at your next
meeting.
26 
The Arterial Man.
Drawn by Frederick H. Williams. 
 
IMPERSONATION No. 3.
                      the arterial max.
Ladies  and Gentlemen :
   Well, here I am,  just as my brother  form, the muscular  man,
promised you.
   Although the bony, muscular, and all  other human shapes have
left me  and I am before you alone, separated completely from the
rest of my  family, the human form  which  I constitute is a very per-
fect  one, for my blood vessels permeate  every part of the human
being.
   If I belonged to the vegetable kingdom my proper classification
would be the tree of life, my heart  constituting the roots, my aorta,
which was  my main artery, the trunk, and all the rest of my arteries
branching  from this  in  every conceivable direction, the branches
growing finer and finer as they approached their varied destinations
in the other tissues until ultimately they  terminated in a net-work
of vascular loops which connected me with the venous man, so fine
in caliber as to be indistinguishable by the naked eye and called the
capillaries.   These would properly be called the leaves of the tree of
life.   The figure is not a  bad one, for as in the historical tree its
leaves were for the healing of the nations,  so my capillaries  were for
the healing and building up of the entire physical man.  By the way,
I never have had the opportunity of  looking in the glass, and it would
not serve any purpose if I  had, for my eyes are nothing but bloody
eyes and I am as blind as a bat. But it occurs to me as my heart and
larger arteries are large enough to be seen by the naked eye, and my
capillaries in which my small arterioles terminate in every part of the
body are so fine as to  be indistinguishable  by the naked eye, my out-
lines instead of being well defined as I appear before you must fade
out so gradually as to give me the appearance of  being completely
surrounded by a sort of a halo.  You might mistake my margins for
a fine fuzz and think if I lived long enough I would  feather out.  But
you would  be wrong, as I can assure you that I have no closer rela-
tionship with the  feathery tribe  than I have with the rest of the
physical creation, and my  peculiar appearance in this respect  is
                               27 
 simply due to the fineness of the subdivisions of my arteries as they
 disappear in the sea of capillaries which is their ultimate destination.
 You see at my periphery I, as it  were, melt away into the invisible.
 My heart and  most  of  my arteries are plainly visible, but as these
 grow smaller and fade out into  the capillaries  I .become invisible.
 So in part you  see me, but in' part you do not see me.
    You know that so far as my brothers and I are concerned we were
 all constructed  of minute cells, varying in shape and size, but always
 so diminutive as to  require the. use of a microscope to bring them
 within the observation  of  the anatomist.   There could be no skin
 man, areolar man, nervous  man, muscular man, or any other kind of
 a man unless cells were employed in his building, just as  bricks are
 employed in the building of a  brick house.  The cells  of different
 kinds were closely molded  together in such shapes as  to  constitute
 the various tissues out  of  which our whole body was constructed.
 Yet there was not a single cell in the entire human being the material
 for which had not been  carried along my arteries out into my  capil-
 laries, and through these poured into the adjacent tissues.  In conse-
 quence of this fact I used to flatter myself that I was the direct means
 by which our whole  family of human  shapes was in the  first place
 constructed, and  that in the same manner I was the  direct  agent
 through which  all repairs were made.
    Although  I  myself was called a perfect human shape, neverthe-
 less I will have to admit that in some places a part of my shape was
 formed by bones, in  all  places the muscular man contributed to my
 formation, so also the venous, areolar,  lymphatic, and both nervous
 men, in fact all the other human shapes had more or less to do with
 my building, and the knowledge of this fact was probably all that kept
 me from feeling a  sense of  superiority over my brother men.   It
 seemed as though in a sense I was more  important than they were, for
 I brought the material for the construction of every one of  them, and
 I  was constantly supplying material  for  the  extensive  repairing
 which they all of them seemed to continually demand, and it kept me
 busy, I can tell  you.  The eyes wanted my blood, so did the ears and
 all  of the parts of the head, neck, trunk and extremities,  and I con-
trolled the entire blood market and gave my whole time to  supplying
 it  for the others to feed upon, taking, of  course, for myself  what
little I needed for personal  use.  In supplying my own wants, how-
ever, I wish it distinctly understood that I  never under any circum-
stances supplied myself from the general blood supply of which  I had
entire charge.   This mass of liquid flesh, the blood, was entrusted to
28 
my keeping for the benefit of the whole family and I had to give an
account of every drop which came into my channels.  So instead of
taking a mean advantage of  this  public  treasury as thousands of
public officers in similar places of trust are so sorely tempted to do,
I carried it to its destination, wherever it might be, completely unmo-
lested and in as good condition as when I received it for transmission.
Of course a certain amount of blood was necessary for my own build-
ing and repairing, but this was  supplied by a separate set  of blood
vessels, called the vasa vasorum,  and I put in my demands for nutri-
ment by way of these minute blood vessels on the same plan as was
observed by the other members  of  our physical family.   You  see I
 was  salaried.  I was  born honest, and  I never betrayed a  trust.
Every bit of blood that was entrusted to my keeping was  honestly
given up again and my sole  source of  supply  for my own necessities
was what  was allotted to me by the little system of the vasa vasorum.
As you see me to-night my blood  has all been drawn off and  I am
nothing but a set of hollow tubes of various sizes, so arranged as to
be  rounded out into a very complete human form.
    I have been called the arterial man for a good many years.  When
the first anatomist discovered me it  was in a dead body, and as I am
filled with blood only during life, of course he found that I  was hol-
low just as  I am now and so he thought I was full of air when carry-
ing on my business in the body, and hence the name artery, from aer,
signifying air.  It strikes me as  singular, now that anatomists know
better, that  this man's ignorance has not been wiped out of  the text-
books and a name given me that was truer to life;  but I have been
called the arterial  man so many  years that I  suppose my name will
probably remain unchanged  so long as physical creation lasts.  But
my continuing to bear the old  name which the first anatomist in his
ignorance gave me, shows one thing very plainly, that the  mistakes
of men are frequently indelibly stamped upon the ages which follow.
The old anatomist is dead and forgotten, but because he thought I
was full of air and therefore dubbed my branches arteries, therefore
his anatomical blunder seerhs destined to advertise his ignorance
for all time.
    I am not the only instance  of such bad naming in the human or-
ganism, but I do not like it just the  same, and although there is little
hope  that  my branches  will ever be called anything but arteries I
thought I  would take this opportunity to register my grievance. For
the reason that it is a misnomer I do not like the term artery in spite
of the fact that I cannot help it and expect to endure it for the rest of
29 
time.  I do not know that it matters much, however, if you all under-
stand that, although my tubes are said  to contain nothing but air
when our family of forms has ceased its  activities and begins to dis-
integrate  (being what is commonly termed as dead), when in  the
living state and ready for  the business of the world there is not  a
bubble of air in me, but  I  am completely filled, from heart to capil-
laries, with that great bright red fluid of life known as human blood.
(In one of my arteries—the pulmonary—I carry black blood, but only
a short distance).   My heart, like my arteries, is  a hollow organ,
located in the lower part of the chest, inclining to the left side.  Its
point  is downward  and  toward  the  left,  being  two  and  a half
inches to the left of the middle line and as low as the intercostal space
between the fifth and sixth ribs of the bony man, its base directed
upward and to the right, extending as high as the costal cartilages
of the third rib and one and a half inches to the right of the middle
line.   This brings  the body of my heart behind the lower part of the
breast bone, or sternum.
   I sometimes thought that  my lot was a hard one, because  I had
no opportunity to rest from one end of  life to the other.   There was
such a steady demand for the blood which I contained that I had to
keep the stream  in motion day and night, winter and summer, year
in and year out—until myself and my brother forms gave up the ghost
and passed into dissolution—from sixty to seventy  times  per minute
in health, and in disease from twenty to one hundred and eighty times
per minute  (which was about as fast as  could be counted).  The
pulsations of my heart and the throbs  of my arteries must  be per-
petually made as ordered by one or  both of the nervous men.
   I dealt in two kinds of blood.  The  blood which  was  poured into
the left auricle of  the heart (that  being  the upper  compartment of
the heart  on the left side) as  it came fresh  from the  lungs, was
thoroughly oxygenated if the lungs  had  done their duty, and was
bright red in color.  As soon as the auricle was full its muscular coat
contracted and forced  it down into  the left ventricle of the heart, by
way  of the  opening  between the auricle  and  ventricle,  which was
called the left auriculo-ventricular  opening.  This was  guarded by
what was known as the mitral valve in such a manner that when the
left ventricle contracted,  which it  did  just as soon as  it was full,
the valve  was completely  closed,  and  it thus became  impossible
for the blood to be  forced back in the direction from which it came.
This compelled it to pass upward into what was known  as the arch
of my aorta, which  is the largest blood vessel of my form,and then it
                              30 
 passed  through numberless channels to its destination in my capil-
 laries.  At  the same time that the  left side of the heart was thus
 forcing the blood all over the body a similar function was being per-
 formed by the right side of my heart, only the blood which the right
 side of my  heart handled was  black  or  venous blood, and instead of
 pumping it to all parts of the  body  as the left side of my heart did,
 the blood which it contained was only sent as  far as the lungs by
 means  of  my pulmonary  artery with  its branches and capillaries.
    You see the blood was poured into the right auricle of my heart by
 means of the two big central branches of the venous man, the superior
 vena cava bringing the black polluted stream of blood from the upper
 part of the body and the inferior vena  cava bringing the  same kind
 of blood from the lower part  of  the body.   As  soon as these
 streams had  filled the  right  auricle  of my heart,  its walls con-
 tracted, forcing the black blood through the right auriculo-ventricular
 opening into  the right ventricle of the heart.  This opening between
 my right auricle and ventricle  was guarded by what is known as the
 tricuspid valve,  whose  arrangement was quite similar to that of
 the  mitral  valve of the left side, so that when my  right ventricle
 contracted  the blood could not leak back into  the right  auricle of
 my  heart, but passed through the  pulmonary artery to  the  lungs.
 The two halves of my  heart worked with a uniform rhythm.   My
 auricles were filled and emptied, as  were also  my  ventricles, at
 the same instant,  although the left  side handled the bright red, or
 arterial, and  the right side  the  dark  red, or venous, blood.   The
 walls of my  auricles were  of about  the  same thickness, for the
 distance which they  had to carry the  blood was the same on the
 two sides of  my heart,  being merely from the auricles down into
 the ventricles.  But with  the  ventricles it  was different.   My  left
 ventricle had to pump the blood as high  as the head and as  low as the
 feet and as far out as the ends of the  fingers and everywhere between,
 while my right ventricle only  had to carry the  blood as far as the
 lungs.   That was why the muscular walls of my left  ventricle were
 about three times  as thick as the walls of my right ventricle.  But
 they always contracted at just the same  time, so that a superficial
 observer would scarcely suspect there being such a difference in their
 functions.  When my ventricles contracted the blood was forced out
 into  my two largest arteries, namely, the aorta, which received the
bright red blood from my left ventricle, and my pulmonary artery,
which received the black blood  from my right ventricle, with tremen-
dous force;  indeed it started a wave which  throbbed through every
31 
artery  of  my  organization and  did  not  stop  until it  reached the
great sea of my capillaries.
   You can imagine  with what speed the blood rushed along my
hollow  walls  when  you  stop  to  think  that  the ventricles  were
completely emptied in a full grown person from sixty to seventy
times  per minute, and  that  a blood  corpuscle  could make  a
complete circuit of the circulation, starting from  the left side of the
heart, passing  along the arteries as far as any of the capillaries, back
through the veins, through the right  auricle of my heart, down into
my right  ventricle, to the lungs, back from the  lungs  into my left
auricle, and down again to my left ventricle, where it started from.
in about two minutes' time. This is not quite as quick as an electrical
or a thought wave, but it was an accomplishment of which I was quite
proud.  Some would regard my work as very monotonous, as it had
to be kept up as a steady thing, in sickness and in health, during activ-
ity as  well as  repose,  as a regular supply of blood was demanded by
every  one of  our human forms throughout life, and I am one of
the shapes that was never permitted  to rest either day or night.   I
was  always  deeply  interested   in  my  work,  however.   I  could
never  tell where  my blood  came from  nor  where  it went to, as
I was  always  in the habit of  minding my own business and simply
performed my duty of passing it on.   But I knew that  life and
death  for our whole  family depended  upon  my personal  efforts,
and  I  was keenly alive to the  responsible position in which I was
placed.   Sometimes  my  muscular fibers,  through imperfect con-
nection with the nervous men,  would either shut down too tightly
and  narrow the  caliber of some of my arteries, or  else let  them
stand  too wide open  from a  condition  known  as  paralysis.   In
either  case my blood stream would be obstructed, my precious burden
 would not reach its destination, and as I knew I  would be blamed as
 soon as my imperfectly performed function was found out I suffered
all the tortures  of a messenger  who  had an  important  mission
entrusted to his keeping and which he was not able to execute.
    The organs  or tissues  that  "relied upon my affected arteries  for
their customary blood supply, failing to receive it, would starve and
sicken and set up serious mischief for the whole  family, for the or-
gans of our body are  so closely associated that suffering in any part
was communicated more or less perfectly and immediately to all other
parts,  and when one  of our  family  was sick  we were  all  sick.  A
knowledge of this fact was sufficient incentive  to me to do my  whole
duty by my family and leave  no stone unturned so far as I  was con-
32 
cerned to complete a well-rounded physical  career.   My conscience
has always been clear.  My nervous brothers, the cerebro-spinal and
sympathetic men, could not always agree as to how hard I should
work, and in consequence my orders were frequently contradictory
and this always made trouble.  I was fretted  a good deal in this way,
and when there was any serious difficulty from this cause my nervous
brothers  always had to come to some sort of an understanding before
my functions could be again properly established.  I got very tired
sometimes and would  have liked to have been relieved from such
steady employment, but it was useless to complain, as there  was no
one else to do my work. My duty was a very  exacting and trying one.
If I accomplished my work too fast or too slow, or became the least
bit unsteady in it, my whole family was upset and disaster to us all
was sure to follow sooner or later.
    I had nothing to do with returning the blood from either the lungs
or the other tissues to my heart, as I had a twin brother, the venous
man,  who accomplished this function.  It was all that I could do to
distribute the blood from the heart  to  the  lungs and  to the other
tissues.   I will say nothing of its return, as my  venous brother is
perfectly  capable of speaking for himself and will present his auto-
biography to you at your next meeting.
    If I have given you the impression  that my heart  was  the  sole
propelling power of  the  great blood stream which rushed along
my channels  permit me now to correct  it.   My arteries, which ex-
tend from my heart to my  capillaries,  whether they were large or
small,  consisted of three separate  coats.   The  innermost  coat or
tunica intima, as it was called, was a serous membrane continuous
at one extremity with the lining of the heart and at the other with
the capillaries.  Its surface was covered with what is known as
pavement epithelium, so as to render it perfectly smooth in order that
the rush  of blood might find no obstacle  in its way.   My outer coat,
called the tunica adventitia, was a membrane furnished  me by the
areolar man  for my  comfort and  protection from the encroach-
ment  of  my fellow  shapes.   It held  me in place by  its attachments
to the sheaths which encased me and made  a soft bed for me to lie
in,  besides adding to  my  strength and elasticity.   If one coat  was
more  important than the others perhaps it was my  middle  coat,
which had been woven for me through the kindness  of my  brother,
the muscular man.   The  fibers  thus  furnished  me by my  mus-
cular  brother for my  middle coat were  all of the involuntary  type,
and they  were arranged  about my  tubes  in layers.  Although the
                              33 
fibers themselves  were very short, by overlapping they constituted
a thick heavy tunic, which  formed most of my thickness.   In these
layers the fibers on the outside were arranged longitudinally,  and
when they contracted shortened the artery which they surrounded,
while those  of  the inner layers passed around  the caliber of the
artery in a circular manner, so that when they contracted  they nar-
rowed  the  caliber of whatever artery  they  surrounded.   By  this
arrangement I was capable of peristaltic action, just like the sweat
glands or intestinal tract,  or any  other of the tubes of the body,
concerning which my brother form, the muscular man, has already
spoken to you and my tubular brother who is still to be heard from,
will explain.
   Now all the heart  had to do was to pump the  blood into my ar-
teries, the left ventricle into my aorta and the right ventricle  into
my pulmonary artery.  Just as soon as this was accomplished I had
three little valves in each of these arteries right close to  the heart
which immediately closed, so that it was  impossible for the ventricles
when the heart was relaxed to receive the blood back again. These
valves in their appearance resembled a half moon, and were conse-
quently called the  semilunar valves.   Any who wish may examine
them at the close  of my talk.  When the blood attempted to rush
back into my heart after the contraction of my ventricles,  it found
its way behind these valves and threw them together suddenly with a
click, known as the second sound of the  heart.  But  they were equal
to their task, and when my ventricles had once emptied themselves my
semilunar valves were immediately closed and not a drop  of blood
leaked back.  To be sure my heart acted with considerable  force and
sent a tremendous wave out into my arteries.   But this wave would
soon have ceased and by no means be expected to reach as far as my
capillaries if the middle coats of my arteries did not  first relax to re-
ceive the approaching wave, and then immediately contract  and con-
tinue the impulse along my  entire arterial length.  The heart started
the impulse which made my arteries pulsate, but my arteries them-
selves kept up the throb by their rhythmical  peristaltic action until
my muscular coat stopped and  the innumerable small streams of
blood found themselves lost in the ocean of my capillaries.  There
was no pulse beat in my capillaries, but there was in  every other part
of my structure, and  I want you to understand that the  heart did
not deserve all the credit for my universal  pulse.
   You see the blood which I contained  was really the liquid person.
None of my brothers could  ever have taken shape except for me.  I
34 
held all the tissues of every one of them in solution, and was respon-
sible for circulating not only the crude physical material out of which
they were all constructed, but also the vitality which supplied them
with the very ideals by which they were each and all of them built.
The blood stream was truly the river of life, which was immediately
responsible for every type of organic function and physical activity,
whether of growth,  of  function or of repair.  A knowledge  of this
fact would have been likely to inflict me with my own  importance if
it  had not involved also a deep sense  of  the responsibility  of  my
office,  for our entire family of bodily shapes were charges placed in
my keeping,  and so  keenly did  I  feel the importance of my function
that I  had no time for conceit or pride of position.  The fact of the
matter was  that  we were all mutually  dependent upon each other,
and in reality no member of our wonderful family of human forms
could be spared without destroying the entire family,  and hence as
this fact was known to all of us,  conceit was not  one of our tempta-
tions.  We never debated the question  as to who was the greatest,
but simply went on each with the duties allotted to him to the best of
his ability, always working  in harmony, each  for the benefit of  the
others. We were never unhappy unless  some one  of us was sick, and
we were so  closely united that  when one of us was sick we all suf-
fered in common, a fact that will be considered  more at length by
one  or more  of my brothers who will speak to you later  on.
    You will  observe that I am  one of  the tubular members  of our
body,  and that my service to our  human being  was performed by
peristaltic action.  In  this capacity I enjoyed a distinction over all
the other tubes except my twin, the venous man, and  also the lym-
phatic  man.   For instance, there were  the sweat glands, sebaceous
glands, mucous  glands, kidneys,  ureters and bladder,  the intestinal
tract, the uterus, vagina, and testicles,  and the bronchial tubes, all
of which performed their functions  by peristaltic action the same
as I did. The muscular fibers by which these peristalses were accom-
plished in all of the tubular organs, myself included, were  of  the
involuntary  type and hence were under the control of the sympa-
thetic  nervous man, the cerebro-spinal  man controlling the  volun-
tary muscles  only.  Thus you win readily see that peristaltic  action,
which  was the mode of activity employed by the  tubes of our body,
was  presided over by the sympathetic man.  In this respect my own
peristaltic actions enjoyed a  special distinction from that accorded
the other and  less consequential tubes.  My muscular coat consisted,
of involuntary fibers just as all other tubes did.  But the nervous
35 
force which kept them in rhythmic operation was not supplied solely
by the sympathetic  nerve.  The cerebro-spinal system  sent out in-
numerable  tendrils,  which, joining with similar ones from the sym-
pathetic, mingled together in a net-work of entangling fibers, which
were twined about my entire structure from heart to capillaries, con-
stituting a special  set  of  nerves  known as the vasomotor system.
By this arrangement you will see at once that while the rest of the
tubes of the body had directly but one source of nervous supply upon
which  all their  operations depended, namely, the sympathetic, in
my own case I was under the  direct influence of both nervous sys-
tems.  My nervous  brothers will  each of them address you in  due
time, but right here  it will do no harm to mention one or two of their
characteristics, as this seems necessary to explain why  I was under
the control of both of them, and also why my regular business was
frequently interfered with until sometimes I scarcely knew whether
I was afoot or horseback, so to speak.  This  fact also explains  our
premature death.
   You should know that my cerebro-spinal brother was a very self-
conscious  fellow. He saw and heard and smelt and tasted and  felt
our  way through the world and based his orders on a judgment
which resulted from his various observations.  When he was level-
headed and serene all  went well, but let him become possessed of
cranky notions, as he did too frequently for the good of the  family,
and  he was sure to get us all into trouble.   So  far as  I  was con-
cerned I did not mind his commanding me to enlarge the caliber of
my facial  arteries and suffuse  our composite  face with blushes, for
blushing is but an  accomplishment of modesty.  But when he was
fearful and got over-anxious and kept us all awake nights and worked
us too hard, when he took a moody  view of  events over  which he
had  no  control and distressed the whole family with his lamenta-
tions, and especially when he went beyond this and got mad he could
do us all more  harm in a minute than could  be undone in a week.
It was a good thing for us that he could boss us around only during
waking hours, as he was very erratic,  hard headed and inconsiderate.
He made mistakes enough for  us  all  and we really never succeeded
in being a happy family until all  the conceit and self-will to which
he was prone was taken out of him  by the incidents and accidents
of time and he  became thoroughly  imbued with the only true in-
spiration of correct living which was  embodied in the submissive
prayer, "Thy will, not mine, be done."  All  through the  first part
of our life he and God seemed to differ and his  determination was
                              36 
 evidently "My will, not thine, be done," and it took a good many
 disappointments and disasters, in which the whole family of us was
 involved, to  teach  him the fallacy of attempting  to become a law
 unto himself, and that his  business was to obey laws rather than  to
 attempt to make them.  Later on in our experience he became more
 Christian-like, and  as he did so we got on better.  It was a happy
 day for us when he surrendered, for we were  all  at his mercy and
 the burden of his mistakes  always fell upon me  especially, or at least
 so it seemed to me.  He would  repeatedly call upon me  for  more
 activity than I  was capable of and  got me all out of rhythm until I
 was many a time more distressed and discouraged than I  can pos-
 sibly tell you.  Our family troubles, I am satisfied,  all had  their be-
 ginnings in his mistaken conceptions  of life and its purposes; but I
 have no complaints to offer.  He was our elder brother, and with-
 out him our existence would  not have been  possible, and  we were
 all satisfied that his mistakes were those of ignorance, which he was
 only too glad to correct as  soon as he  learned better. He knew very
 well that whatever  he had in his head was of supreme importance to
 us and on all occasions I am satisfied that he did the best by us that
 he could, and all that I want to say is that as he grew wiser the rest
 of us invariably grew happier and healthier.
    The sympathetic man,  who was always on  duty day and night
 from birth to death, was  not  at all self-conscious or erratic in his
 management of us.  His business was simply to find out what the
 various members of the family needed and do  the best  he  could in
 the way of supplying it.  He  was regular in his habits  and tireless
 in his energy.  He  sympathized very deeply with the troubles of the
 cerebro-spinal man, but nevertheless had a mind of his  own, which
 was  greatly to our advantage, for without his steadying influence
 none of us would have had  sufficient courage for a single day's work.
 It was under his masterly management that all our work of building
 and repair was carried on and the various rhythms of the organs
 established and  maintained. He never slept nor rested, but was always
 at his post of duty, issuing whatever orders were necessary for the
 performance of the  various bodily functions.  We had jolly comfort-
 able  times  nights, when  the   cerebro-spinal  man was  asleep.
 He  was   of  an  uncomplaining  nature  and  did the  best he
 could with the  forces  at  his command,  regardless  of the  inci-
dents and accidents of our human experience.  Sometimes our cerebo-
spinal brother would submit to his management and then all would
be well  with  us.  But this  was not always the  case, and when our
37 
cerebro-spinal brother succeeded in  disarranging the plans of our
sympathetic man there was trouble in store for all of us.  But even
in such crises of our  existence our sympathetic brother stood right
by us and did the best he could.  The vaso-motor*system of  nerves
which  dominated my personal activity  would  receive some  pretty
severe  orders from the cerebro-spinal man, but when disaster threat-
ened the sympathetic man would modify them so as to  make life
tolerable and trouble was thus frequently averted and our continued
existence made possible.  These nervous brothers of mine will each
speak  for himself  after a short time, and  so  it is unnecessary for
me to say more to you now concerning them.   My best  and dearest
and most reliable  and helpful companion  in  all the years of my
existence, however, I wish to tell you right now was my sympathetic
brother.  He was a quiet fellow and was never properly appreciated
by doctors  or laymen, but his time is coming, if indeed it has not
already come, and matters are going to be better than they were, for
he knows laws and every human being had better listen to his coun-
sels if he wishes to get on well.  Of course our family of forms were
all fond of one another, but I can tell you that our sympathetic man
is the brother whose  voice needs to  be  heard,  and I advise you to
give him careful audience when he speaks.
   Perhaps you have observed in looking at me that my arteries sel-
dom pursue a straight course, but are more or less tortuous in their
appearance.   The reason for this was  to adapt them for the different
positions and conditions of the  parts which they supplied.   In organs
which vary greatly in size and position at different times my arteries
were much more tortuous than where but little mobility or  change
of position was expected.  My large arteries always ran out to their
destination in as direct a course as possible.  In the extremities they
wound about so as to lie along  the flexor side of the limbs, only such
branches as  were absolutely necessary being sent off on the side of
the extensors.  There were no large  arteries along the back  of my
head, neck, trunk or limbs.  Of course  my capillaries were  every-
where, as the  nature of  their function rendered this necessary.
But everywhere in the body  my position was always as direct as
possible on account of the importance of my  mission.  The whole
family  realized my importance and favored me accordingly.   All of
them would  fight for me in a minute if they had to, and I  tell you it
scared  them all when  I suffered violence and the blood which I car-
ried was spilled out or obstructed.
   A few of my brothers  had tissue  so  characteristic of them as to
38 
give them a marked individuality.  Especially was this the case with
my bony, my muscular, and  my areolar brothers.   But for myself,
I seemed to be constructed entirely from elements borrowed from
other members of my family.  I was under especial obligations to the
areolar and to the muscular men.   The forms of most of the other
men were closely entangled in the meshes of my own  construction,
just as our forms were  all more  or less  closely blended together.
But I could retain my shape and personal identity and spare all my
brothers  except the bony, muscular, areolar, and skin men.  Without
these I  could not and would not  have existed.    My sympathetic
brother,  who, as you will  understand from what  I have said,  was
very close to my heart, contributed but  little to my  shape.   The
understanding between us, however, was just as close as  though his
outward  form had been a larger part of my own.
    Ladies and  gentlemen,  I  feel that I have already severely taxed
your patience with my long story, and so will bring my remarks to a
close.  I  have  said nothing of how I have suffered in the way of
sickness, acute and chronic, but I think you will understand that, like
my brothers, I, too,  was mortal and consequently  subject to all the
conditions of mortality, having much to do while  I lived with the
health and sickness, the growth and repair, of all the human shapes
with whom I was associated, and  was liable to all their  sorrows as
well as their joys, to all their diseases as well as their recoveries.  I
had a few troubles peculiar to myself, but do not  deem the present
occasion  a proper time for their consideration, as my story has already
been a long one.  So, thanking you for your presence and thoughtful
attention, I bid you good  day, feeling sure  that  if you have been
interested in my  personal history in spite of its incompleteness and
other imperfections, you will take a still deeper interest in the imper-
sonations of my brother forms, who are yet to be heard  from.
    The next shape to speak to you will be my  twin brother, the
venous  man.
39 
 
 
The Venous Man
Drawn by Frederick H. Williams. 
IMPERSONATION No. 4.
                       the venous  man.
Ladies and Gentlemen :
    My twin, the arterial man, has requested me to appear before you
and tell you something of myself, and so I suppose I must do the best
I  can  to entertain you.  Although a  good speaker with me for  a
subject might be able to give you pleasant and profitable entertain-
ment, I have but little confidence in my own ability to make full use
of my  opportunity.  I am just one of the brotherhood of shapes that
you have been  hearing about of late,  and  more of a worker than  I
am of  a speaker.  If  I could only be  put  in operation, so that you
could get a fair example of the use that I  was made to serve in the
human body, you would find the  demonstration fascinating in the
extreme. If my story, then, does not hold your attention it is because
it  is poorly told, and not from any poverty of material out of which
to weave a brief consideration.   In other words, I am conscious of
being interesting in  myself,  but  have little faith in being able to
present my interesting features in an  entertaining manner.   But if
you will allow  something for my  embarrassment, something for my
loneliness  and  grief and helplessness  at  being separated from my
brother shapes, within  whose  meshes  I was always  so closely
entwined,  something for the  fact that I am somber in appearance,
have been  somber in my life work, and must therefore be  more or
less somber in my talk, I will briefly refer to a  few of my characteris-
tics that seem  to me most deserving of your attention.
    Although each of the human forms will speak for himself in your
presence, and is supposed to  confine himself to matters of personal
consequence, for myself I shall take the privilege of dropping  an occa-
sional remark  concerning some of the other members of my family
whenever it seems necessary to  do so,  in order to properly elucidate
my theme.
   You know I am a twin, and although I am expected to confine my
present remarks to personal  matters, in my own mind I find it dif-
ficult to escape the conscious presence of my twin brother. The fact
41 
of the matter is,  we have had very much in common.   \\ hen the
blood of our body was all drawn off we were both of us found to
be merely tubular formations.   Both of us carried blood, both of us
were connected with the heart  at one end  and with the capillary sys-
tem of the body at the other; but although so closely associated with
each other our functions were quite different, my brother's mission
being to carry blood away from the heart out into all the tissues of
the body, and my mission being the reverse, to collect the blood from
every part of the human system and return it to the heart. Between
us we managed the complete circulation of the blood.  But he, as I
said, distributed it, while I collected it. He spread the table for the
nourishment of the human being, while I picked up the crumbs. He
brought things, I took them away.  He acted as a  supply train, while
I was more or less of a funeral procession.  He dealt in supplies, while
I was more of  a high-grade scavenger, and gathered  up the  waste,
either for renewal or burial, as proved to be necessary.  So you see,
while between us we managed  the circulation of the blood, in  reality
we performed uses of an opposite nature.
   This was  true so far as the greater part of our work was con-
cerned. Down in the chest, however, our duties were reversed. After I
collected the  blood  from all parts of the body and poured it,  a foul,
polluted stream, into the right auricle  of the heart, this cavity con-
tracted and forced it into the  right ventricle, and there my service
ended  so  far as my handling  of dark blood was concerned.  My
brother, the arterial man, then took charge of it and had the responsi-
ble position of conveying it to the lungs for its purification, after
which  it was once more passed into my keeping and, by my four
pulmonary veins,  I had  the joyous privilege of emptying it into the
left auricle of the heart, after  which it was once more placed in my
brother's keeping.  You see, whenever blood went from the heart, be
it  red or black, my brother had it in charge, and whenever  it was
brought toward the heart, regardless of its color, the burden became
mine.  But my brother  and I understood each  other so perfectly
that  we worked in such perfect harmony  as in reality to appear like
one person, the bloody man, instead of two, as we are represented in
your presence. It is  perfectly proper, however,  that we should be
regarded as two separate forms, because there were enough marked
points of difference between us to establish separate identities.  For
instance, in the matter of construction, each of us had three coats,
and although there was very little difference between the outer and
inner coats which belonged to us,  the middle  coat, which  entered
i\1 
into the formation of the arterial man, was much thicker and more
substantial than my own middle coat.  So marked was this difference
that whenever an artery was severed and the blood emptied away the
artery stood wide open, so that the severed end appeared perfectly
round. If an artery was pinched its elasticity immediately restored its
shape when the pinching ceased.  But poor me! I was not so blessed
with stiffening material. When I was not distended by the current
of blood which coursed through my channels,  I became perfectly col-
lapsed, and  it would not be necessary to pinch me  to hold my walls
together.  They would  stay together  of their own weight.  Never-
theless I was not devoid of a middle coat, and such as I  had was
constructed after the manner of that of the arterial man, namely, of
involuntary muscular fibers.
   Our means of nourishment and nerve supply were identical. Like
the arterial man my activities, what few I had, for I was not so active
as he, neither was I as strong, were presided over by the vasomotor
nerves which, as he. has explained to  you, were made up of a com-
bination of sympathetic and cerebro-spinal nerve fibers, so that either
nervous  system could  have  direct communication with the blood
stream.  Then,  too,  neither of  us depended  upon the blood  we
handled for our nourishment, but, as he has already explained to you,
a delicate system of blood vessels called the vasa-vasorum provided us
with what material  we needed for our nourishment.   In this we were
alike.
   We were quite  different in our containing capacities.  It would
take twice as much  blood to fill my veins as would be required to dis-
tend his arteries.  That is, my area of channel surface  was twice as
extensive as  his.  My branches  were more numerous  and more
irregular in their location.  As we handled the same amount of blood
you  can  at once see  that he had to  accomplish his work  twice as
rapidly as I did mine. So while the arterial stream was very rapid the
venous stream was  comparatively sluggish.  In general terms I con-
sisted of two sets of veins, both of them, of course, starting at the
capillaries and coalescing as they increased in size and decreased in
number as they approached the heart.  One set of my veins kept com-
pany with the trunks of the arteries, the largest-sized arteries having
but one vein, while the middle-sized and  smaller arteries were fur-
nished with two companion veins, called vense comites.   This set
of veins  which  accompanied the arteries, and were often  encased
with them in  the same  enveloping  sheath, were known as  the  deep
veins.  The other set of veins, called  the superficial, ramified in the
43 
loose areolar tissue immediately beneath the skin, and when they were
filled with blood and the skin was of a clear transparent quality they
showed as irregular blue  streaks, mapping the surface of the body
out into queer, irregular-shaped figures, bounded by the blue lines.
    It seemed as though the blood must  get lost in the labyrinth of
my channels and never  succeed in finding its way back to the heart.
Such was not the case however  as, if  there was no  mechanical
obstruction  to prevent, the heart got all of its blood back  in  due
time, and as fast as it emptied itself  was filled up  again.  In some
places my venous  branches went by the name of sinuses.  For in-
stance, the large  venous trunk that took the blood from the walls
of the heart itself and poured it into the right auricle was called the
coronary sinus. The large veins which connected the uterus with the
placenta in gestation are known as the uterine sinuses.  Those of my
veins which  were located in  the  dura  mater of  the  brain—the
tough  outer  membrane which  acted as  a lining  to the  cranial
cavity—were  all called  sinuses.  There were fifteen of them  in all,
but their naming is not important  on the present  occasion, as the
fact which I have already stated is all that will probably interest you
at present.  In a  few places, where my veins were very numerous,
thick enough  indeed to constitute  something of a bundle of them,
they took the name of plexuses; as for instance, the choroid plexuses,
in the lateral  ventricles of the  brain, the pampiniform plexuses in
the spermatic  cords of the male and  in the broad ligaments of the
female.   It  is a little confusing to  students of anatomy  that some
portions  of my tubular structure  go by  the  name  of sinuses,  for
the bony  man has cavities connected with the cranial  bones that
are also  called sinuses, as the frontal, ethmoidal,  sphenoidal, and
maxillary sinuses.  To have the same name to mean in one connection
a bony cavity, and in another place a blood vessel is a little awkward,
is  it not?  Nevertheless I  had  nothing to do with the matter and
simply relate the facts.
   Anatomy is not a very  progressive science and does not change
much with the years.  As what I am telling you is already a matter of
ancient history, it is liable to remain unchanged for ages to come.   So
instead of finding fault with things as they are it will better become
us perhaps to simply accept the  situation and let that end  the matter.
It  is all right to fret  about unsatisfactory arrangements that  are
capable of modification, but to resent the inevitable  and rail against
conditions which are permanently fixed is both useless and unsatis-
factory.
44 
   In another important respect the arterial man and myself were
different.   He had no valvular arrangement except the semi-lunar
valves which served to prevent the regurgitation of the blood back
into the ventricles when they relaxed after contraction.  But I was
furnished with innumerable valves  placed a few inches apart in most
of my branches, so that when the blood tried to go back toward  the
capillaries, as it  might do under some  forms of outside pressure, or
induced by gravity acting upon dependent parts, the regurgitation of
the blood stream toward the capillaries  was thus rendered impossible,
for the slightest motion of the blood  backward closed  these valves
and completely obstructed its progress.  There was one part of  my
venous self which was unprovided with these valves, and while there
may be some advantages in this fact with which I am not acquainted,
1 sorely felt their absence and often wished that there had been valves
enough to go around, so that all my venous branches could have been
provided with them.
    I  refer to my veins which were connected with the digestive or-
gans. Those of my veins which came from the spleen and stomach  and
the small intestine and from the large intestine  and from the pan-
creas, indeed, as I said, from all of the digestive organs, coalesced
into one large vein known as the portal vein, which carried the blood
to the liver and  ramified through this organ before it was again  col-
lected by the hepatic veins and carried  into the inferior vena cava, to
be carried with the rest of the blood from the lower part of the body
to the right auricle of the heart.  All these digestive veins were  un-
provided with valves.  As a human being spends much of his time in
an upright position you can readily, see that  the lower veins con-
nected  with  these digestive organs,  namely, those supplying  the
rectum, are forced to sustain the  pressure  of the entire column of
the blood which extends from them to the liver.  Not only does the
force of gravity act upon them, but when the liver was congested or
the circulation  of the blood through it was in any other manner im-
peded, the venous stream was thus  blockaded and the veins which
collect the blood from the rectum were called upon to sustain  the
entire force of this pressure.  You can  at once see that here were  two
obvious reasons for undue stretching of veins which return the blood
from  the  rectum.   These veins were called  hemorrhoidal veins,  and
their  dilatation  constituted  the  annoying and mischievous trouble
known as hemorrhoids, so common an  affliction as to be familiar not
only to doctors, but to the laity as well.  It seemed to me that hemor-
rhoids could  be  avoided if all veins  which come  from the digestive
45 
organs were provided with valves.  But this is the way I was made,
and I presume it was for a valid reason, although I am fully unable to
appreciate it, and so in reality "have no right to  pass such severe judg-
ment upon my construction.
   Gravity does affect me, as is evidenced by the fact that varicose
conditions of my channels occur in independent parts.  The veins of
my lower limbs suffered most and  frequently became as  large as
your little finger and stood out like whipcords  all  over the surface of
the limbs just beneath the skin.  Sometimes they were distended to
such an extent as to rupture beneath the skin and cause  spots of
ecchymosis, which took a long time to absorb. Oftentimes the skin
itself became  so congested as to break down and  have great big
patches of sores, known as varicose ulcerations.  When my veins in
the pampiniform plexuses of the  spermatic cord became enlarged in
this  way, the condition was known  as  varicocele and had such a
weakening, degenerating effect upon the male sexual system as to call
for relief to prevent a complete loss of sexual vigor.
   You must  not think, however, that gravity was the  sole cause of
undue  dilatation of any of my channels.  For if this were the case
everybody would have varicose veins, and such, as you  know, is not
the case.   The main factor in any varicosity was  a depleted nervous
system, concerning which it is not my province to discourse.  My
nervous brothers can tell of  their own troubles when it comes their
turn to speak.  Only you will understand that I held them responsible
for whatever pathological difficulties I was forced to encounter.  In
this sentiment let me assure  you all of my  brother shapes will also
join, for we are all agreed that as our life and health were maintained
by the  nervous men, so disease in its various types was invariably
the product of sins of either omission or commission on the part of
these same nervous brothers of ours.   Whether they will confess this
to you  or not remains to be seen, but for one  I propose to give you
this  idea right here, not to escape  personal  blame, but simply to
acknowledge my sole dependence for whatever I am  or become upon
whatever influence was meted out to me by my  nervous associates.
We were good friends, my nervous brothers and  myself, for we had
to be.  Nevertheless, while I was their  willing servant I was also
their unfortunate victim; and I have the courage of my convictions to
the extent  of proclaiming the truth about the matter in this public
manner.
   My arterial brother and  myself had another  point of difference
which  should be mentioned,  and that is that  the flow of the blood
through  his  channels  was  accomplished   by waves  of pulsation
                              46 
starting from the heart and continued through the arterial channels
by peristaltic action.  But with me it was different.  The stream
of blood which  passed from the capillaries where I started into my
venous channels and  finally  emptied into the  heart, flowed along
smoothly and evenly, without wave or pulsation.
    One word more as to the difference in  the quality of blood which
was carried by  the arterial man and myself; while it was his chief
occupation to distribute the bright red or arterial blood, and mine'to
collect from all parts of the body the dark red or venous blood, in
our doings with the lungs the quality of our separate burdens was
reversed, for after I had  poured all my black blood  into the right
side of the heart I was too tired to do  more, and so he helped me
out by relieving me of my sorry burden  of carrying it into the lungs
and to return his kindness, as soon as the blood was rejuvenated and
made bright red again I paid him  the compliment of conveying it
into his keeping in the left side of the heart.  That is one way of tell-
ing the story;  another  is that  it was  his business to conduct all
blood, regardless of color, away from the heart, and mine to return it.
    At your next assembly the human form who will address you will
be the lymphatic man.  He will have little enough to say for himself,
and I will not anticipate his remarks except to say to you that  all the
liquid product of his industrious work, be it debris from bodily tissues
or the chyle prepared from the food, was poured into my channels at
the upper part of the chest, just a short distance before they combined
to form the superior vena cava which returned the blood from the
upper  part  of the body into the right auricle of the  heart.  What
a  mixture  this made of the dark waters of flickering life that had
their meeting in the right auricle of the heart.  Here  was the dish-
water of the tissues; the old  worn out,  disintegrated  and dissolved
bodily products  mingling their liquid death and discouragement with
the new material coming directly from the  digestive tract laden with
the hopes of tissues yet unborn.  The surging  stream whirled  into
the right ventricle and was  no longer in  my  keeping.   But my
arterial brother  coming to my rescue turned with a powerful grasp
the current,  black  with  the  liquid tissues  from which  all  life has
been squeezed and impregnated with  the incipient hopes of life hurry-
ing to fleshly embodiments, to the lungs for that wonderful breath
of life which typifies resurrection to such an extent  that it  trans-
formed death into life, black blood into bright red blood, stale,  profit-
less, poisonous stuff into a vitalizing fluid for which the bodily tissues
forever stood in wait.  In return for my arterial brother's kindness
in  taking this black,  polluted stream to its final destination  in the
                                47 
lungs, a service easily conceived to be beneath his dignity, I stood
with open veinlets to collect this bright red stream into which had so
marvelously been breathed the breath  of life, and by  my pulmonary
veins conveyed it to the left auricle of the heart, from which it was
at once returned to  the  keeping of my  arterial  brother,  who  dis-
tributed it throughout the human being, giving each manly form the
exact amount needed for  his sustenance and repair.  When we were
at our regular business, with the exception of our thoracic interchange
of offices,  my arterial brother and myself were great  contrasts.  He
was  fair and I was  swarthy.    He was  full  of life  and force  and
vivacity and strength, and I was  weak and discouraged and sluggish
and  flabby.  While we  were alike in shape,  alike invisible to the
naked eye at the  capillaries,  so  that  our outlines were equally in-
definite, the contrast between us was  so  great that in spite of our
close association there was  little  danger of mistaking one of us for
the other.   If he was day I was  night, if he was life  I was death,  if
he was  substance I was  shadow, if he was fire I was ashes, if he
supplied I buried,  if he  sang I  sighed,  if he  smiled I cried, if he
was  hope  I  was despair, if he was young I was old, if he was an
orchard I  was a graveyard,  if he was a picture I was but its back-
ground, if he was the flow  of life I was its ebb, if he was the river
of life I was  the river  Styx.  We symboled  the extremes of the
pendulum of life, we pictured the perpetual ebb and  flow and stood
for the eternal circle of  things, thus forever revolving from life to
death and from death to life.  I loved my brother.  He was my hope.
Yes, I should say our hope, for all of us depended upon him. I knew
that  my brother loved me;  and yet in my despondency I  sometimes
feared  that his sentiment toward me  must have been more akin to
pity  than to love.  But we both had our uses.
   I have told my tale in my poor inadequate manner, and your  kind
attention has touched me deeply.  It assures  me  that my imperfect
presentation of the position I occupied in the brotherhood of human
shapes has not entirely hindered  you from catching the spirit  of the
personal history which I have been trying to present to you.  My
work in the body was somber, responsible, full of discouragement and
serious. But I was the only black sheep in the  family, and the  others
of my brother shapes will furnish you with a  livelier entertainment.
The  next  in order  to appear before you will be the lymphatic man.
You  must not expect too much of him, for he is bashful and diffident
in his ways and will probably have less to say  for himself than most
of the other members of  our composite family.
48 
 
The  Lymphatic Man.
Drawn by Frederick H. Williams. 
IMPERSONATION No. 5.
                      the lymphatic man.
 Ladies and Gentlemen :
    Some of our family of human forms are quite widely known, prob-
 ably because they have had their pictures taken so many times that
 almost everybody has had  an opportunity of  seeing their  shapes.
 This is certainly true of our bony brother, for pictures of the human
 skeleton are widely scattered, appearing not only in all illustrated
 onatomies, but in anatomical charts, medical  periodicals, and fre-
 quently even in the popular press, so that every man, woman and child
 in every civilized  country has had ample opportunity to  familiarize
 himself  with the  appearance of the bony  man.  Pictures  of  the
 muscular man are also pretty thoroughly circulated, and probably
 every  well-read person knows that the muscular structures of  the
 human being when adjusted in  their accustomed relations to each
 other assume the human shape which is known among our immediate
 family as the muscular man. The two bloody men, the arterial and
 venous, make such pretty pictures when  they  sit for  their photo-
 graphs that they are not to be left out when the  popular members of
 our family are being mentioned.
   But I will not ask you if you have ever heard of the lymphatic man,
 for I am well aware of my limited reputation as  a human shape, and
 consequently would expect a negative reply, and so I will save you
 the trouble of telling me that my existence is not widely known, but
 will proceed at once to let you know that there is such  a fellow as the
 lymphatic man, and  that his proportions are identical  with those
 of his  brother shapes and his  duties are of sufficient  importance  to
 entitle  him to a recognition as one of  the human shapes whose con-
 gregation constitutes  the composite being known as man.  Look  at
me, if you please, and behold the lymphatic man.
   Well, in the first place I rank as one of the  most  perfect in our
family  of shapes.   Please do not  consider this a  conceited  statement.
It is a  mere matter of fact.  I do not  think that we have any more
right to underestimate ourselves and  our  friends than we have  to
49 
overestimate them, and the truth is always the truth with reference
to ourselves, whether we relate it or some one else does, and the fact
concerning myself is just as I have stated.  The distribution of my
peculiar structures is so universal throughout the entire body that if
all the other bodily shapes were melted away from me and I  was left
entirely alone the human  shape which I would still assume would be
one of the most perfect in our whole family.  Of course if every bit
of the vascular,  nervous and connective tissue men were completely
separated from me down to their last fibre my identity would be com-
pletely destroyed.  But grant me enough of my brotherly tissues to
establish my identity and  then gaze  at my shape.   There is not an
organ or tissue of the body that I do not  permeate, and  my tissue
distribution is so exceedingly fine that it  can only be detected by
the aid of the microscope.  This same fact is true of several of our
family.  My bloody brothers have already mentioned it as true of
themselves, and  when my nervous associates speak to you,  and the
areolar man has his  say, these also will call attention to the same fact
as characterizing their make-up.  That makes quite a band of us, you
see, who present a  hazy  outline, the coarser part  of our  structures.
being observed by the naked  eye, but our finer parts passing into  such
obscurity as to be unseen unless considerably magnified by glasses.
   Honest confession they say is good for the soul, and the reason
why I say so  much about my  shape is because,  I suppose, of my
vanity.  It  is so perfect that  I am really quite proud of it.  There is
no bodily territory of the entire composite man in which I do  not take
so extensive a part  as to make the lymphatic man as shapely as the
form  of the entire individual will admit.
   In my structure I resemble my arterial brother.  That is, I am tubu-
lar, and my tubes have three coats, an inner or epithelial coat called
the tunica  intima, a middle  or muscular, composed of layers of in-
voluntary muscular  fibres just like his, and the outer or areolar  coat,
called the  tunica adventitia.   Altogether his walls  are  much thicker
than mine, but he need not be at all  stuck up about it, for mine are
more  delicate than his, and it is quality that counts in this world more
than quantity.   So  although feebler  in structure  than the arterial
man,  and  even than the venous man, I have  reason  to be  just as
proud of my make-up as they are.  I am more delicate and refined,
that is all.  My occupation may be a little more  menial in the estima-
tion of some people, but I find that it makes little difference  what
we do in this world, it is what we are that counts.   So  I am  banking
on my quality  rather than on my occupation.  Life is short  anyway,
                               50 
and  I  have no complaint to enter against the bodily task assigned
me, my chief care being what I am and how well I do my work, and
you can take it for granted that I would not be entitled to mention in
the list of bodily shapes,—that  is my tissues would not be univer-
sally distributed throughout the body, if I was not at least of some
consequence in the make-up of our family.
   As to my terminal tendrils, I  am somewhat closely associated with
the capillaries which connect the venous and arterial men, while at
my central trunks, which are two, the right and left lymphatic ducts,
the latter being known as the thoracic duct, I terminate in the large
veins near the heart.  I have no  right to complain if I am considered
as belonging to the great venous man, but in  his remarks before you
he was kind enough by ignoring me to admit my right to a personal
identity, and so I have taken advantage of his generosity by putting
in a  claim right here to my individuality and posing as a separate and
distinct human shape.
   I suppose you want to know  of my source, of my destination, and
of my function.  1 have already told  you something of my structure
but not quite all, and let me say a little more about that first.
   You will remember that the venous man boasted of the possession
of occasional valves along his canals  to prevent the regurgitation of
blood, backward toward the capillaries. In this respect I am his supe-
rior.   I not only have valves along  my channels,  but  they are  so
thickly placed  in every one of my branches  that my outline is  not
straight like the venous man, but extremely knotted, having the  ap-
pearance indeed of a string of very fine beads.  The constricted points
mark the location of my valves.  You see the lymph which flows along
my channels passes but one way, viz., toward the center of circulation,
the heart, and it goes so slowly  and is dependent to such an extent
upon the vis a  tergo -furnished by muscular action that my innumer-
able  valves  are necessary to prevent  excessive regurgitation of  my
liquid contents toward the tissues. Although I may appear, as I have
said, to be composed of rather small  tubes, there is another part  of
my structure which  is so peculiar to myself that you will not find
anything  like  it associated with any other human sha'pe.  I  have
reference  to what is known as the lymphatic glands.  If I am con-
sidered a system of small  sewers  for the body simply because I collect
the dish-water  of the tissues after they have all been bathed in the
lymph  which I carry, these glands would probably be considered  as
catch basins.   If my  tubes  rank  in  your estimation, however,  as
drainage canals, depleting the tissues of their wash  water, you may
51 
think of these glands as locks along the course of  my channels, at
which the flow of lymph must stop and be filtered on its way to the
venous blood stream.
   My glands are located in protected situations. You will find them
in the  bends of  the  elbows, the arm  pits, the  popliteal spaces, the
groins,  thickly scattered throughout the anterior part of  the  neck,
that is, the part in front of the cervical vertebrae, and in the abdomen
between the  folds of the mesentery which suspends the small intestine
to the backbone, and in the chest between the lungs, the space  being
known as the mediastinum.
   The structure of my glands is too complicated to be presented to
you  in exhaustive detail on the present  occasion, for my purpose in
speaking to  you, as  I  understand it, is to give you a general con-
ception  of myself rather than to entertain you with minute details
which would confuse rather than interest you.  You ought to  know
this  much, however,  that every one of my lymphatic vessels passes
through one or more of these glands on its way to its  destination in
the veins. I ought perhaps to say that  every one of my glands has
an enveloping sheath consisting  of areolar tissue, in which are dis-
tributed a number of involuntary muscular fibres, so that when they
are congested from over use the elasticity of  their coats aids in  milk-
ing their contents onward toward the blood stream.  I  shall have to
claim for my glands, however, a little more  distinction than that of
being mere  catch basins or locks in the lymphatic canals.   Perhaps
you  have heard  somewhere of the  minute blood elements  known as
white blood  corpuscles.  As bacteria are the lowest type of vegetable
life,  so these white blood corpuscles may be considered as the lowest
type of animal life.  At any rate they  are important agents  in the
construction and preservation of the human tissues.  They  are other-
wise known as leucocytes,  and it is my office to introduce them to
you  as lymph  cells.   They are the only cells in the body that possess
no cell wall.  They move about very much like a jelly fish in water,
that is by what is known as an amoeboid movement, by means of which
they escape from the capillaries into the tissues, wander into my  chan-
nels, and are carried on to my lymphatic glands.  The fact that more of
these lymph  cells leave the glands than enter them proves conclusively
that my glands are  factories for their formation.  The red marrow
of the cancellous tissue of bones is  said to  give rise to them, they
are born also in  the spleen, and perhaps in the  thyroid, and perhaps
up to the seventh year of life in the thymus gland, but there is prob-
ably no more  prolific source of their supply  than my own  lymphatic
                               5 2 
glands.  You see this gives more dignity to my position in the body,
as to be a manufacturer of an important bodily constituent is a much
more honorable position in the human economy than to rank merely
as a set of sewers or drainage canals.  My glands are liable to be
sickly, owing to  the poisonous  nature  of  the lymph which filters
through them.  They frequently become inflamed from the passage
of infected lymph and break down into abscesses, and many times they
become tubercular and have to be removed to prevent the spread of
tuberculosis,  and  sometimes of cancer, to other  parts of the body.
 You  must remember that all the contents  of my entire system  is
poured into the stream of venous blood which goes back to the heart,
which is sent first to the lungs and afterward again to the heart, and
then propelled by the  agency of the arterial man  to every part of
the human body,  thus  rendering it important that this blood stream
should be wholesome and nutritious, and when my glands become so
badly infected that they are liable to poison the lymph which runs
from them their  extermination becomes a matter of great  surgical
importance.  Of  course some of them are inaccessible, like  those in
the abdomen and  thorax, but those in the popliteal  space,  the elbow,
and in the axilla  and groin and  along the front of the neck, can be
taken away at the discretion of the surgeon.
    This has been rather a long parenthesis, but has seemed necessary
to a proper conception of  my make-up.  I will now speak briefly of
the three points in which  perhaps you are  more directly  interested,
namely, where I begin, where I  end, and what is my function.
    First, then, of my source.   Well, my radicals are everywhere.
There is no tissue in the body in which they do not start,  sometimes
in the shape of capillary loops, sometimes in well rounded, sometimes
in dilated extremities, but more  frequently in what is  known as the
areolar  spaces. To understand what I mean by areolar spaces you
must  wait  until my kindred shape, the areolar or  connective tissue
man,  talks to you.  For the present it will suffice to  say  that the
entire body is more or less porous, like a sponge,  in the  meshes of
which the cell elements of different  kinds, of which the entire body
consists, are more or less entangled and in which they are variously
arranged according to the organ which they are destined to construct.
WTell, these fine  pores which are found  in every type of  bodily
structure open directly into my canals, so that anything which they
contain  has open access to my  tubes.  Of  course solid  substances
must be in  solution to enter my domain, but with this provision I am
capable of acting as a drainage canal for every part of the body. The
                               53 
liquid which I thus collect is known as lymph, and because it is my
function to collect this lymph from the entire bodily domain I have
received the name which I bear and am known as the lymphatic man.
In the abdominal cavity I do more than this, but I will speak of that
later on.   There is another  manner in which my radicals have their
beginning which should  not be  lost sight  of, and that is  by littl*
mouths or openings called stomata.  If you examine any of the serous-
cavities, such as the joints,  large or small, the arachnoid membrane
about the brain and spinal cord, either of the pleurae, the pericardium,
or the great peritoneal cavity, it matters not which, you  will find on
the smooth shining surface of any of these cavities minute slits o\
openings.  These are the stomata or mouths of which I am speaking.
They are gateways which lead directly into my little canals, so that
as a matter of fact all serous cavities both large and small are nothing
but magnified lymph  sacs,  by  means  of  which serous fluid can be
drained away when too excessive and carried directly into the blood
stream.  When an excess of fluid does not  thus escape it is because
some process  of inflammation has sealed these mouths for  the time
being and thus closed the stomata, which in a normal state serve as
an avenue of exit for all excess of fluid in serous cavities. I suppose
that when inflammation attacks the human  body in any of  its types
my position in the family  of human shapes is perhaps a more respon-
sible one than that of any other, for all poisonous liquids  pass at once
into my channels, and if I can not by means of my lymph corpuscles
and other sources of defense antidote the poison it passes from my
keeping and by means of the blood is distributed to other parts of the
body, which then become sufferers with myself.
   As to  my destination, there is little to  say concerning  it.  The
lymph which I collect from the right arm and right side of  the head
after it has been passed through the lymphatic glands situated along
the course of such of my  vessels  as drain these parts, is  carried into
the lymph  channels,  which increase in  size as they coalesce, until
finally one large trunk about an inch and a  half in length and called
the right lymphatic duct,  receives the entire quantity of lymph from
these parts and pours  it  into the right subclavian vein, or into the
outer end of the right innominate vein,  right where it starts at the
junction of the right subclavian and internal jugular veins.  As the
stream of lymph has  now entered  the blood  stream, of course you
know its  destination, as you have already listened to the remarks of
the venous man.
   My left lymphatic duct is more pretentious and is  known as the
                               54 
thoracic duct because it passes  from the abdomen, where it starts
opposite  the  second or  third lumbar vertebra  entirely  through the
thoracic region, and terminates  in the left subclavian vein near its
confluence with the left jugular vein, these two streams uniting at
this point in the left innominate vein.  My left lymphatic, or so-called
thoracic  duct,  receives  the contents of the lymphatic vessels from
every part of the body not drained by the right lymphatic duct. That
is, it drains the left side of the head and neck, the left arm, the lower
extremities, the abdomen, and the thorax itself.
    Now as to  my function.  It  is three-fold.   I collect lymph from
the tissues, chyle from the intestines after it has been manufactured
in the process  of  digestion, and by means of my lymphatic  glands
manufacture lymph cells, which are  identical with the white blood
corpuscles.  You  see my lymph in the first place escapes from the
capillaries in every part of the body out into the porous tissues which
surround them, thus putting the whole  body to soak as it were in
a liquid which  serves as their soup or nutriment and at the same time
as their  wash  water or sewage.  Some of this liquid  undoubtedly
gets back into  the veinlets and  passes directly to the heart.  But a
considerable portion of it,  after the  maceration of the tissues in
the liquid of life, which would not be a bad name for it by the way,
is  collected by my  innumerable radicals and  is milked along my
channels by the action of surrounding muscles  and by the fine mus-
cular coat of my own tubes until either by the right or left lymphatic
duct  it is carried back  to the great river of  life, whose complete
and continuous circulation is so essential to  bodily  growth  and
repair.  You know how a foul  stream will pollute a clear one  into
which it empties.   To be sure the venous blood returning from all
the tissues of the body except the lungs is dark red or purple because
it  has parted  with the oxygen with which  the arterial  blood is
charged.  But  its  pollution is not complete until the tissue-washed
lymph which it is  my office to carry is poured back into the veins at
the upper part  of  the chest.  To be sure I bring the chyle from the
great table of  life, the  intestinal tract, and it is full of good cheer
and  strength  and  nourishment  and  hope and  longer  life  for  the
hungry tissues  after it  has received the  breath  of life in the lungs,
but this is but a small ingredient to counterbalance the great mass of
dissolved  tissue debris that finds its  way by my operation into the
venous channels.  The  blood stream may  have been  dark  before
the sewage which  I carry was emptied into it, but afterward it  was
not only dark  but polluted more or less thoroughly, according to
55 
the quality of the tissue disintegration  that I have  been asked to
return to the circulatory centers.   Every day I rejoice that our fam-
ily of shapes is provided with lungs for the purification of the blood,
and  every night I have prayed  that these  delicate organs may be
equal to their important task.  When I  think of what they have to
endure in the way of resurrecting  old, decrepit, worn-out  blood
cells, giving new ones recently born their  first breath of life,  and
disinfecting the impurities of the blood  current as they have accu-
mulated from all the innumerable communities of the organs,  I  feel
as though our  composite of human  forms cannot  appreciate  too
keenly the kind offices of the lungs or do too much  in the way of
conscientiously performing each his separate task in order to lighten
as far as possible the burdens of these  all important twin organs,
the human lungs.
   Ladies and gentlemen, I  thank you for  your  kind attention  and
sincerely hope that my remarks have  persuaded   you   that  the
lymphatic man deserves to be considered  as  a worthy member of
the common family of human forms, whose separate  individualities
are presenting themselves for your inspection in their proper order.
   The next human shape to address you will be  the member of our
family known among ourselves as the skin man.
56 
 
&
*\
.
4
The Skin Man.
Drawn by Frederick H. Williams. 
IMPERSONATION No. 6.
                       the  skin  man.

Ladies and Gentlemen :
   Here I am, as announced, to ask your attention while I tell you
something of myself and my relations with my brother shapes.
   I am smooth on the outside, because the liquid has evaporated
from my outer cells and left them dried up.   I am ragged on  the
inside, because my deeper layers are continuous with the areolar
tissue which penetrates to the most remost parts of  our brother-
hood.  I  am  tough, because  of the fibrous tissue out of which a
large part of my structures is woven.  I am elastic and can stretch
or contract as needed  owing to the fact that my texture is more or
less porous and therefore capable of acting as a closely fitting gar-
ment to the human organization which I was constructed to cover
in whatever proportions it may assume.  I become delicate and
sensitive  if coddled and pampered, but get tough as a  newsboy
when roughing it under exposure.  The venous  and  arterial men
furnish me with all the blood that I need, the sympathetic man and
the lymphatic man have  been taxed for my benefit, while  the
cerebro-spinal man has honored me with such an ample supply of
nerve terminals as to set me up as the organ of touch for the entire
body.  In exposed places I am thick, as in the palms of the hands
and the soles of the feet.  And I can also create to order under the
stimulus of intermittent pressure special areas  of thickened tissues,
as everybody knows who has suffered from  corns and  callouses
and can testify if they  are willing to give themselves away. Lean-
ing on the elbows, or sitting or kneeling  also  thickens me at the
places where the pressure comes.  I have to pad myself in these
localities. I am glad to thicken at my knees, for much good seems
to come to me from it,  but I cannot say as much for other localities.
I am thin in protected places, as on the flexion side of the joints and
the inner sides of my limbs.  In a few places I  contain involuntary
muscularfibres.giving meerectilequalities enjoyed bybutfewof the
bodily organs.  In warmth I am relaxed and  more or less porous,
                             57 
but when acted  upon by cold I can  hug my meshes  together  so
tightly as to take on the  appearance known as goose  flesh.   In
shape you will easily recognize that I am a very perfect human form,
and if I ever belonged to one of your friends I would not be able to
conceal the fact  from you.
   But  do not  mistake  me for the whole  human being, as  I  am
nothing but his  cage.   The bird himself has flown.   I  look sub-
stantial, but I am hollow.   To you whose gaze is only skin deep I
may appear all right, but percuss  me anywhere and just hear  me
ring.  If I was stiff enough I would make a fine drum.  Then you
could secure  from me with a pair of drumsticks almost any pitch
you wanted, according to the depth  of the underlying hollowness.
You would  get  low ones  from  my trunk  and  head,  higher ones
from my arms, and still higher ones from my fingers and toes.   If
you should cut a hole in me anywhere and peek in you would at
once perceive that my brother shapes had all left me alone and that
I was a vacant chamber, completely hollow in every part, and black
as night inside, because no light can enter my pores except through
the hole which  you yourself made.  It  seems  as  though I have
limbs and head  and  trunk, but don't deceive yourselves; I  am in
reality very unsubstantial, for my brother, the bony man, no  longer
sustains me,  and the muscular and  other brothers constructed  of
gentler stuff have taken themselves away and furnish me with pad-
ding no more.  In reality I am nothing but  a  mere wrapping of  the
substantial shapes which I  used to contain.
   When  our family was  all together and  our household was in
good working order my position  seemed to  me so important that
I was impressed with a deep  sense of responsibility. At that time
I held the entire family within my embrace.   I was their  swaddling
and grave clothes, and was at all times essential not only to their
protection but their service  in many other  respects,  to which  I
will refer  in a short time.   More than my brothers, perhaps, I  am
most emphatically a child of time.   Let me explain this  a little more
at length.  If there is ever one thing that  is characteristic of this
transitory physical world it is the outward forms of things.  This
whole physical world of ours indeed could very properly be dubbed
a skin world, for some type of skin  or covering is absolutely neces-
sary to  all physical  shaping.   In the vegetable kingdom the skin
is called the bark.  In the mineral kingdom, although you may think
the illustration is rather far-fetched, the  entire substance in  every
case is but an outer vessel to receive, become saturated with and
58 
retain the indwelling vitality  known as magnetism, without which
the molecules of which minerals are made could not be held together.
I wonder if this molecular contraction or magnetism is not what is
known in physical science as  gravity.  The animal  kingdom, with-
out exception, is invariably skin covered.   And this  is true not only
of each entire  animal but of  every part of the animal.  Even the
minute  cells or smallest particles into  which animal tissue  can be
divided have their cell walls or  skins, without which  they could
never assume physical shape,  and here I am claiming identity with
the  connective  tissue man,  but  while  I  include him, he  by  no
means  includes  me.   Wine  and  water  and other  liquids  are
no more dependent upon the bottles, casks,  cans or other vessels that
hold them than is the human family dependent for its  very exist-
ence upon  the  human skin..  The  skin  is  the  baby's swaddling
clothes, and as he grows  the skin stretches and  still incloses him.
When at last he shrinks and shrivels the skin contracts and wrinkles
upon his receding form, thus  always acting as a closely fitting gar-
ment.
    I was always proud to  have my brother shapes in my continuous
grasp, feeling  that only  through me could  they  be held together
for the purposes of their  existence.
    You  have perhaps heard  the story  of the man in one  of  our
western cities who had discovered a universal solvent for all phys-
ical substances.  It would dissolve iron, or steel, or stone, or glass,
or wood, or rubber, or any other material whatsoever.  His road to
fame met with  a single obstruction, but that was a fatal one.  Owing
to its wonderful solvent  powers  he  could find no  material out of
which to construct a  receiving vessel, and so his wonderful  solvent
became dissipated and his discovery was valueless.  This story is a
fine fable, for it illustrates a universal truth, that nothing can exist in
this world  without  being confined by  some containing structure.
That confining material,  whatever form it may assume, may nat-
urally be considered  as its skin.   Hence it strikes me as not at all*
improper to call the  entire physical world the skin or shell of the
unseen world which  dwells within, and which by perpetually play-
ing  upon it is  constantly  producing changes  in the skin type.   In
this  same way  my brothers could not exist and sustain their shape
without my assistance.  A cell wall is really a skin, whether it be of
the muscular, nervous, or  other tissue.   And  all my brother shapes
are mere aggregations of cells of various kinds.  Such small skins
as these  are comparatively insignificant when compared to myself.
59 
I am the skin of skins, and common, simply constructed skins, whose
sole office appears to be to serve as a box or containing vessel, arc
not in the same class  as  myself.   As these smaller skins  protect
their contents,  so of course I protect the  body  from harm.  But
aside  from this fact there is no  further  resemblance.
    I am perfectly  willing that less important coverings of small
and apparently unimportant  structures should be called skins if '.t
is only understood that I am the skin.  These smaller skins,  by the
way, have various names according to their locality, which  will be
given you by the connective tissue  man,  who will be the next one
of our family to entertain you.   In giving  an account of  myself it
may be well to proceed in an orderly manner and tell you first the
main  features  of my structure, and then speak of  my various
functions.
    I presume that most of  you at some time in your lives have
either from unwonted pressure or some form of irritant experienced
what is commonly known as a blister.  Perhaps you think that when
the blister is broken and its covering taken off that the skin has been
removed, but in such case you do me a great injustice.   What has
been taken away is nothing but my outer layer, which is known as
cuticle or scarf skin.   The true skin  still  remains  unharmed,  and  if
permitted to do so will reproduce the scarf  skin again as good as ever.
So  you see I consist of two layers,  the cuticle, to which I have just
referred, and the cutis vera, or true skin or  derma, as I am universally
called, which it requires more than a mere blister to injure or destroy.
There are no blood vessels in my cuticle,  and hence  a blister can be
raised and the scarf skin separated without the blister being reddened
by  blood.  But the deeper layers of my  cuticle are penetrated  by
nerve fibers, rendering the blistering process not altogether  a com-
fortable one.  After the scarf skin has been raised  by a blister, of
course  the nerves which pass into the deeper layers of the cuticle are
all separated, and it causes no pain to lift  the covering of the  blister.
But any  measure which  tears my cuticle  from my true skin  causes
more or less pain in the process.  My scarf skin deserves more than a
passing notice, and indeed I will not be able to do it full justice on the
present occasion, for it is not so simple a structure as you might think.
The outer surface of my  cuticle or scarf skin is hard and  horny
because the liquid contents of the cells which compose it have evapor-
ated and  rendered me a little scaly on the surface.  These outer cells
or scales  are constantly being shed, their places being taken by those
which are constantly growing up  from beneath.  In this way is my
                               60 
scarf skin being constantly renewed  from beneath.   The inner sur-
face of the scarf skin is softer in texture  and fits  tightly over the
irregular surface of my  true skin.  As this latter is always more or
less roughened  by  papillary projections upon its surface,  the entire
under surface of my scarf skin is bespattered with small holes or de-
pressions for their  reception, and owing to this fact  has received the
name of rete mucosum.   Between the rete mucosum and my outer
surface my scarf skin consists of various layers of cells which change
their shapes  from within outward according to the  degree in which
their contents have been evaporated by contact with  the outer air.
    The  coloring matter in the  dark  races is deposited in this  deep
layer of the  scarf skin known,  as I have just mentioned to you, as
the rete mucosum,  so that if the cuticle of a colored man be stripped
off he will be  found  to  be just as white as anybody else, but  he
will not be white at all upon the surface, but red.   My true skin is so
vascular  that in a normal condition  it takes  on  a  decidedly red
appearance.  My scarf skin, aside from serving as  the recipient of
the coloring matter in the dark races, is useful mainly for purposes
of  protection to my more delicate and underlying cutis vera.  It
prevents  the undue entrance and exit of  both heat and cold and
the too rapid evaporation of liquids.   My cutis vera, derma or true
skin, however, is more highly organized, and you will find its struc-
ture an interesting  study.   Its outer surface, which is covered close-
ly  by  the cuticle,  presents a multitude of small elevations known
as  papillae, which  project  from the surface of the true skin like
warts  on a  toad's  back.   So important are these papillae that the
thin layer of the derma which presents them is known as  the papil-
lary layer.   Sometimes  these  papillae  are  arranged in rows,  with
little  grooves between them.  This is  especially true of the palms
of  the  hands  and soles  of  the  feet, and  palmists  who   have
studied the arrangement  of these ridges and curls on  the palms of
the hands closely,  will  tell you  that  they  constitute  the veritable
parchment  upon  which  the   story  of  the  life,   past,  present,
and future can  be  told in  general terms.   Each papilla contains a
little capillary loop of blood vessels and lymphatics, and small ter-
minal  nerve filaments as  well.  Some  of these  nerve  filaments
terminate in an enlargement known as the tactile corpuscles,  in
which  is said to be located the  sense  of touch.  Papillae exist  over
the entire surface of the  cutis vera in  all parts of the body, but in
the palms of the hands  and soles of the feet they  are biggest and
most orderly in  their arrangement.  The papillary layer of my true
61 
skin is not deep, and passes imperceptibly into the deeper layer of
my true skin, which is known as the corium.   This corium is a bed
of fibrous tissue in  which several important  structures  lie closely
nested.  It contains sweat glands, sebaceous glands, hair follicles,
and  involuntary  muscular fibers, its deeper  part  being  character-
ized by layers of areolar tissue in which is entangled adipose tissue.
Sweat glands are little tubes of uniform caliber, arranged in the form
of a coil in the deep  layer of my corium, one end of which is a  blind
pouch, which  lies in the center  of the  coil,  and the other end of
which passes up  through the corium between the papillae and through
the cuticle opening  upon the outer surface of my skin.   While it
remains in the true  skin the sweat gland is a well organized  tube,
having an epithelial lining  and  a muscular coat of involuntary
muscular  fibers,  and an areolar coat  as well; but as  it  passes up
through the cuticle,  it loses all its coats, so that its channel through
the cuticle is rather a space between the cells of which  the cuticle
consists, than a  tube proper.  My sweat glands are scattered thick-
ly over the entire  surface of  my  body,  but  are thickest in the
palms of  my  hands  and the. soles of  my  feet, in this  connection
opening in various places between rows of papillae.
   All over the surface of  my  body are found innumerable hairs.
The small, tiny hairs do not extend deeply  into the skin, but the
coarser specimens of hair penetrate deeply into the corium, some-
times extending beyond it into  the subjacent tissues.  In all cases,
whether the hairs be fine or coarse,  superficial or deep, they are
enclosed in a tubular bag known as the hair sheath, from the bot-
tom of which projects  a papilla  upon which  the hair rests, so that
in reality  they  are nothing but a form of  the scarf skin.  If you
should examine  one  of my  hairs  carefully  with a microscope, you
would see that it consists, not of one  continuous cell, but  of a  num-
ber of flattened  and elongated cells,  shingled over each other in
such  a manner as to render the hair  smooth  from its root toward
its outer  end.   In testing the  cutting  edge  of a  knife  or razor,
always seize a hair by the root after  it is pulled out, and apply the
knife close to the thumb and finger  that holds  the hair.  It  takes
a sharp instrument to sever a hair held in this manner.   If the hair
be held by its outer end, however, a  comparatively dull blade can
sever it by catching the free ends of  the imbricating cells of which
it consists.  On the  scalp the hair follicles  are especially deep, and
pass  clear through  the corium, and  are  found imbedded in the
aponeurosis of the occipital  frontalis muscle,  so that if you  attempt
                               62 
to remove the skin from the scalp without injuring the aponeurosis,
you will find it  necessary to cut the roots of hairs all the way.   I
know of some scalps that  1  am  sure would prove an exception to
this rule, but they are mere cases of baldness, and  do not count.
It is not necessary to call names, because they are quite common.
   You  will find  in my corium also what is known as  sebaceous
glands, which are not  straight tubes  like  the sweat  glands,  but
have branches extending out in  different directions from the central
tube or pipe, which opens invariably into the hair follicle.  There
are usually  two or more- sebaceous glands connected  with  each
hair follicle.   Their  form of  structure is similar to that of the sali-
vary glands and the  pancreas, all of which belong to the type known
as racemose glands.   Like the  sweat glands, they have an epithe-
lial lining, an areolar  coat, and a muscular coat constructed of the
involuntary  muscular  fibers, so arranged as to  squeeze  the  .con-
tents of the sebaceous  glands out into the hair follicle, thus furnish-
ing oil for the hair and the surface of the skin.
    The adipose tissue which my corium contains will not be men-
tioned, as it belongs more properly to the  areolar man to speak of.
    From- this description  you  will  at  once perceive that there is
no particular structure peculiar to myself.   My blood vessels, my
nerves, my  cells, are similar to  those found  elsewhere in the  body.
All that  gives  me  my individuality  is the peculiar combination
which  I have formed  by obtaining contributions from some of my
brother shapes.   So that,  although I am essential  to their  exist-
ence,  they are also  essential to  my existence.  Without  the  blood
I could not be built  up, without the lymphatics and veins  my debris
could  not be removed, without  the nerves I would be  without
sensation, without muscular  fibers I  could not make a single hair
stand on end or raise  a goose pimple, and without areolar tissue I
could have no substantial ground work for my structure, and with-
out epithelial cells I would  be incomplete and inefficient.  So  let
me here pay proper respect to  the other members  of my family,
humbly acknowledging my dependence  upon their kindness,  cour-
tesy and generosity.   My  independence is but  seeming,  and al-
though I am proud, I am  honest as well, and acknowledge my de-
pendency upon  my  fellow shapes at the instance of a  wholesome
conscience.
   Before  closing my remarks  I must  speak briefly  of my various
functions.   One of them I have already referred to,  that  of protec-
tion.   My family would find  this world too rough to  live in if I did
                               63 
not hug them  closely and  shield them  from  the  weather.   It  is
mainly through my instrumentality that the temperature of the body
can be maintained steadily at its normal  degree.  If internal fires
are lighted so  that  our tissues are  consuming  too rapidly,  by
means of my sweat glands, I can produce evaporation and call the
conflagration off.  By means of my  cuticle I can keep out extremes
of heat and cold and can also by this same protection prevent  undue
attrition  between my delicate brothers and the outer world.  My
sweat glands also deserve honorable mention as excrementitious or-
gans.   They  can eliminate urea, and thus supplement the kidneys
in their  important function.  My  sweat  glands and the kidneys
are to a considerable extent supplementary organs.  Perhaps  you
will notice  that when you sweat a great deal, as in warm weather,
there  is  not  as  much urine formed,  regardless of the amount of
water which  you drink,  but in colder weather, when the pores of
my skin are more nearly  closed, the  quantity of  urine expelled from
the body is correspondingly increased.  Through my lymphatics,
which are  distributed throughout my  corium  and  papillary  layer,
I can absorb food and oxygen,  and thus supplement the work of
both the digestive organs and the lungs.   Perhaps you know that
if you feed a child or sensitive grown person with excessive  quan-
tities of beef tea it will  produce a dryness of the mouth, especially
of the tongue.   If fomentations of beef  tea be applied over large
skin areas,  the  same dryness of the mouth and tongue will be set
up, showing my  intimate  association with the  digestive organs.
If you want further  proof of the intimate relationship between my-
self and the organs of digestion, when I become afflicted as I  some-
times do with  eczema, by  means of benzoinated oxide of zinc or
other  ointment  applied to my surface cause this to disappear with-
out giving  anything to correct the condition of the blood, and  watch
the effect upon  the stomach and bowels.  Many a case of dyspepsia
or constipation or diarrhoea has been thus induced, to be immediate-
ly relieved  as soon as the  eczema  is again brought  out  upon the
surface of the skin.  Perhaps you have thought that the lungs were
the sole means  by which oxidation  of the blood was  accomplished.
If so  you have  done me  an injustice,  for I have some small capac-
ity in  that direction myself.   On this account let me remind you that
you ought  to change your clothing as often as possible if  you want
me to do you good  service.  How can your hands  or feet or the
rest of your  skin  breathe if you do not  let them repeatedly come
in contact  with the fresh  air?  When you get tired from your
                               64 
work at night, try the effect of laying  off every garment  you have
on and putting on fresh ones,  and see  if it does not rest you.  Let
the fact that it permits increased  oxidation of the  blood by  way of
the skin, with a corresponding escape of carbonic acid gas, serve as
an explanation, for it will be in  conformance  with what is really
the case.
   In the face and in the pelvic region you will observe a number
of holes through my structure  which lead to interior passages which
ramify throughout the entire body.  Through these holes my skin
passes, and after it gets inside of the openings, is thereafter known
as mucous  membrane.  Tracts of  mucous membrane  run  to the
lungs, down into the  stomach and  intestines, out  into the salivary
glands, pancreas, liver,  and the small  and large intestines.  They
line  also the  entire urinary tract, including the kidneys, and also
ramify through  the  sexual organs. But  this  interesting part  of
my structure, which may properly be  called my internal skin,  al-
though it is usually known by the title  of mucous membrane, is too
extensive a subject  to be  discussed on the present occasion.  Suf-
fice  it  to say for the present that my outer  and  inner  skins are
identical in structure,  continuous  with  each other at the upper and
lower  openings  of the body, and present  different  appearances
simply owing to their different situations  in life.   My outer skin
is adapted  for  contact  with  the outer world,  my inner skin  or
mucous membrane is  fitted for home  service.   But we are  closely
associated, not only in structure,  but by such close ties of relation-
ship as to be mutually interested in each other's  welfare, often bear-
ing each other's  burdens and in every  possible way supplementing
each  other in our daily tasks.
   Over the entire surface of the body my surface is smooth and
continuous,  except at its base,  where I  present a raphe or seaming,
as if at this place  I had been stitched together.  From this  brief
consideration of  my structure  and functions you will perceive just
cause  for my consequential bearing.   My  brother  shapes in  most
cases have single duties which they are specially  qualified  to per-
form.   But with me it is different.  My duties are various.  I am
the body's  outer  defense, and have much to do with the regulating
of its temperature; I  secrete  from my sebaceous  glands, and I
excrete from my sweat glands; I can  be put to a  limited  extent to
purposes of  digestion,  respiration and elimination, and  altogether
I consider myself the best ail-round member of our  family of human
forms.  Although I feel that I have done  myself  but poor justice
65 
owing to my poor command of language, I have at least accom-
plished a worthy purpose if I have served you a pleasant entertain-
ment, and let me  hope in some small degree, instruction as well.
   My connective tissue brother will be  the next of our family to
invite your attention, and if he rises properly to the occasion will be
found  worth listening to, for we  consider him a most important
member of our composite  structure.  In  closing I perhaps owe an
apology for not speaking more particularly of my special function,
the sense of touch, with which I have been endowed.  But as this is
but a part of the cerebro-spinal man, I shall ask him to make up for
my deficiency.
66 
 
The Connective Tissue Man.
Drawn by Frederick H. Williams. 
IMPERSONATION No:  7.
                  the connective tissue man.
 Ladies and Gentlemen :
    Agreeable to the announcement of the  skin man I am here for
 your entertainment on the  present occasion.
    In arranging a concert  program  you know  it is customary to
 appoint the star performers for the  intermediate and closing num-
 bers, beginning  the entertainment with the less pretentious  per-
 formers, thus working the entertainment of the evening to a climax
 to render it more effective.
    Well,  whoever arranged the  order  of  our speaking has given
 me one of the positions of honor, which I was at first a little modest
 about accepting.  But in our family of forms we  are all  stars of
 the first magnitude and there are no greater or smaller among us,
 for each one is  essential to the existence of every other, and so we
 consider ourselves upon equal  footing so far  as  being essential to
 the make-up of the  composite  man  is concerned.
    In every  large family it is quite common for  the various mem-
 bers  to divide themselves  into small groups  of  two or more for
 the sake of close companionship and personal  sympathy.   For al-
 though brotherly love is supposed to be a common family tie, never-
 theless  natural  affinities will assert  themselves and each  one will
 have  his  particular  favorite or  favorites  in  every family circle.
 Our family  of human  shapes is no exception to  this rule.   For in-
 stance, the bony man and the muscular man are almost always to be
 found in each other's company.  The venous man and the arterial
 man are equally good  friends, while the lymphatic man is  so close
 and constant a companion as to render our vascular shapes a  gen-
 uine trio of brotherly  forms, each supplementing the other in the
 work and play of everyday life.   The cerebro-spinal. man  and the
 sympathetic man, whom you have not yet had the  pleasure of greet-
 ing,  constitute another  congenial pair in our family circle, as do
 also the conscious and  the subconscious man.  These also you have
yet to meet.  The skin man, who has but  recently addressed  you,
                              67 
and the organic man,  whose acquaintance you  have yet  to  make,
are rather eccentric members of our household,  and although they
are in close  sympthy with all of our various bodily shapes, never-
theless have no particular members of the family that  they prefer
to chum with.   As for  myself, I too am a  little eccentric in my per-
sonal  attributes and  have no favorites  among my brother shapes,
being equally  interested  and concerned in all of them.   My posi-
tion in the composite man is a very important one, as there  is not
one of our entire brotherhood of shapes in whose make-up I do not
constitute an essential element.  They call me the connective tissue
man, and my  name  is well fitted  to  my  character.
   I am made up of tissue whose office is  to bind the various phys-
ical shapes of our family into one symmetrical person, besides hold-
ing the various parts of every shape in such  definite relations with
every other part as to render it possible for any one of my brothers
to assume and  maintain  the human form  which alone entitles him
to membership in our family.  Thus do I constitute the great blend-
ing element of the body, serving to give each  shape its human form
and to bind all of the shapes  into one symmetrical whole.
   Much  of  my  structure is sufficiently  coarse to be easily dis-
cernible by the naked eye, but my finer parts  require the use of the
microscope for their demonstration.  As  there  is  no part of the
entire human  body  into whose composition  I  do not enter, you
will readily observe that my  form is a very perfect one, and perhaps
more  than any other of our family I stand as a  complete repre-
sentative of the human shape.
   I presume  I am  expected on the present occasion to describe for
you my  structure and the  various uses  I perform  in the bodily
economy.  As to  my structure, it  differs  very much in texture in
different parts  of the body, according to  what  is expected of me.
But whatever form I take on I am always made up of what is known
as white fibrous tissue.   You know a common white thread can be
made by skilled hands to manufacture articles which bear little re-
semblance to each other.  It can be worked  into  various forms of
lace, it can be woven into cloth, it can be tied into nets, it can be
used for the stitching  of garments, it  can be twisted into cords or
ropes, or teased into fringes.  The cloth woven from it can be made
into garments,  sewed into bags, spread out into canvas, cut up for
tablecloths, napkins or towels, shaped into wearing apparel, and so
on in endless variety.  The little white  threads  of fibrous tissue
which are characteristic of my personal structure are equally facile
                               68 
in their accommodation to the uses of the human body.  Sometimes
my fibers lie stretched out in closely hugging fasciculi, so closely ap-
proximated as to leave  scarce any space  between them,  and in such
numbers as to constitute me a living rope, which the muscular man
makes use  of in various places for uniting himself  to the bony man.
Such ropes are called tendons, and by means of the tendons  which
I thus form for the accommodation of our family the muscular man
can  manipulate  the bony man  to his liking.   The largest of those
tendons  is right back  of the ankle, and serves to connect the  calf
of the leg  to the heel, so that the body can be raised upon its toes
as  occasion may require.  There  is another large tendon  which
fastens the kneepan to the upper part of the shin bone, or tibia, and
known as the ligamentum patellae.  This tendon is the main one used
in kicking. It might  with propriety be called the football tendon.
The cords  which you can feel at the back of the knee, extending up-
ward along the thigh, and known as hamstrings, are other examples
of my tendonous make-up.  More tendons can be  felt at the elbow,
and there is a large  bundle of them in front of the wrists, the back
of the wrists  also being thickly  seamed with them.   I am  rather
proud of my tendons, for they are so strong and powerful that while
they are in almost incessant demand in the various uses  to  which
the body is put  they are seldom off duty.  Of course in  extreme
violence they  are sometimes  ruptured,  and  by  accident or  for
surgical  purposes they  may be severed.  But  the  rupturing of my
tendons  is very  uncommon  indeed.  Muscle  will tear and  bones
break  as a rule  before my  tendons give way, such good material
have I employed in their make-up and so carefully  are they knit
together.   They are neither very sensitive nor very  vascular, and yet
if they are cut they  will unite again and they can  become inflamed
and  be a source  of much pain and soreness.  When inflammatory
processes have once set in in  my tendons they progress very slowly.
They are hard to start and equally hard to stop. An inflamed tendon
is a serious matter, because it takes so long for it to  either get well or
to slough away.   My  tendon product  in the body is an extensive
one, and is exhibited in a great variety of sizes, lengths  and shapes.
But  enough has already been said to give you some  conception of
what my white fibrous tissue can do if just laid straight and bound to-
gether so as to  form cords.
   Sometimes my fibers instead  of being bound  into tendons are
spread out  into great flat sheets of white fibrous tissue, the course
of the fibers being straight and parallel, as in the formation of ten-
69 
dons, and are then called  aponeuroses.  These  are also at the  dis-
position of the muscular man and are useful in  aiding the purposes
of the broad, flat muscles of the body.  The  best  illustration of
aponeuroses is found in connection with the abdominal muscles.
   In many of  the garments woven out of my white fibrous tis-
sue  the  threads  or  fibrils cross and interlace in  every  conceiv-
able  direction instead of being laid straight, being closely knit, how-
ever, and by this arrangement forming a substantial groundwork for
the construction of the skin, mucous, serous and synovial membranes,
also  the  dura mater  of the brain and spinal cord,  or tough outer
membrane which surrounds the brain and spinal  cord, as well as the
periosteum.   By  far the greater  part of my texture, however, in-
stead of being tightly woven as  in the membranous structures,  is
put together very loosely so as to be characterized by a perfect maze
of small-sized meshes.
   On account of the numerous holes which  are everywhere ap-
parent, even to the naked  eye, in  this kind of a  structure the tissue
thus  formed is commonly known as areolar tissue.  The layers  in
the areolar  tissue are very convenient as  repositories of fat in the
corpulent and of serum in the dropsical, also of air  in emphysemic
conditions.  Did you know that you can take a poor, scrawny animal
and  by means of a hypodermic syringe pump this loose tissue, which
everywhere underlies  the  skin and  mucous membrane  and  dips
down between the muscles and wraps the nerves and blood vessels,
so full of air  as to make it look fat and plump  in every part?   Did
you  also know that in dropsical conditions the  water always settles
to the dependent part, whether it be feet, hands, side, stomach,  or
back, and that its position can be changed at any time by changes  in
elevation?  Well, it is these small holes  in  my areolar  tissue  that
render possible  these various phenomena.  These  areolar spaces
open into the lymphatic man,  as he  has  already described to  you,
and  in this  way the contents of my areolar spaces may under proper
conditions be absorbed and taken back into the circulation.
    When the meshes of my areolar tissue are not distended by fat,
or liquid of any kind, or gases, they do  not stand open, but  relax
into a flat membrane which acts as a sort of a winding for the  body
as a whole and for every part of it, my areolar tissue being so exten-
 sive as to be found almost everywhere throughout the body, both  on
its surface  and  in its interior.  There is not an  organ in fact in the
 entire body  whose  framework  is  not constructed of the white
70 
 fibrous tissue of which I consist.  When employed in this way for the
 construction of organs  the arrangement of my fibers is  known as
 trabecular.  As this loose areolar tissue of mine serves to envelop
 the various parts of the body, both  singly and en masse, it is called
 fascia, and you will find it arranged,  especially upon the surface of the
 body, in two layers, which are easily distinguished.   The  outer
 layer is  called superficial  fascia,  and  is  recognized by the  large
 areolar spaces which  it  everywhere exhibits.   A little deeper down,
 however, where it acts as a closely  fitting inner garment for the
 muscles, tendons, nerves, arteries,  and organs, the meshes are not
 so large, and consequently are not so  frequently employed as repos-
 itories for fats and liquids,  and here  it is  called deep fascia.   This
 deep  fascia, however, which is the inner winding-sheet for almost
 every bodily structure, of course takes on different names according
 to the use made of it.  Where the  deep fascia serves as a bandage
 for the muscles it is called perimysium.  When it is wrapped around
 nerves so as to form a coating for their safe transit to their destina-
 tion it is known as neurilemma.  When it  is wrapped about a bone
 it  is called periosteum,  and when it lines the cavities of  bone  it is
 called endosteum.  When it surrounds tendons it is called a sheath.
 Wrapping for the kidney, which is  constructed in  the same manner
 while it is really nothing but deep fascia, takes the name of capsule.
 And so on to a greater extent than it is necessary to detail for the
 purposes of the  present occasion.
    Arteries could not be built, or nerves traced, or skin constructed,
 or the brain,  spinal cord,  liver, intestines,  pancreas,  glands, or any
 of the bodily organs retain their shape or be held  in their  posi-
 tion  without  making use of some type of  my  connective tissue.
 Of course my connective tissue cells vary in shape to accommodate
 themselves to the business in hand, whatever it happens to be, being
 sometimes long,  sometimes  square, and sometimes  branched  and
 otherwise curiously made up; but under all circumstances, whether
 as  fascia, or membrane,  or tendon, or  aponeurosis, my fibers always
 retain their individuality.  That is, they have in common these facts;
 they are  developed  from  the  same embryonic elements,  and  they
 serve to support  and connect all nervous, muscular, glandular,  and
 vascular tissues.
    The different varieties of fibrous  tissue are interchangeable in
 different classes  of  animals,  and in  the embryo,  and in growing
normal and morbid  conditions one  form of fibrous  tissue may be
changed  into another,  and upon boiling they all yield like chemical
71 
products.   When put through all these various tests it may surprise
you somewhat to learn that  what is  known  as  bone and cartilage
and the dentine  of  the teeth are but different types of connective
tissue.  I  neglected  to inform you also that while all  that I have
said  thus  far has to do with the  coarser structures of the  body
much of my bodily surface is microscopic in its nature.  You know,
of course,  that the ultimate subdivision of every part of our physical
structure  is cellular, and that all cells are provided not only with
cell contents but also with a cell  wall for their confinement.  Now I
claim the  entire  contract for furnishing all cell  walls of the entire
body  wherever they are to be found, which of course is  everywhere.
It takes pretty fine work to  manufacture these  delicate goods, but
I have  not yet heard any complaint of my output.   The little bags
which I furnish for cell construction  seem to do  their work as
well as  the coarser wrappings, which I supply for tissues and organs
in the gross.  But everywhere,  under all  circumstances, I connect,
I sustain,  I hold together, I envelope, I patch, I confine,  and I might
be fittingly called the  tissue  paper  of the body, which  is entwined
about the body as a whole, its various organs and structures, and even
the cells themselves, out of which  the various organs  are formed.
Hence while in  various places I go by different names, as you see,
I am everywhere and always known, under all circumstances, as
connective tissue.  I insure harmonious action  among  the  various
parts of the body, prevent friction of one part  upon another, bind
together our entire congregation of bodily shapes: I am unifying,
containing,  sustaining  and  embracing in my  propensities.  If I
stand for  any sentiment in the bodily make-up it is that of brother-
ly love,  for without me no organ could be formed, no composite man
could be  constructed.   There could  be  no  eye to  see, no  ear to
hear, no organ of any kind to sense or to function.  Thus without me
physical existence would be an  impossibility, for  the various sub-
stances  of which the body is composed would have nothing to -shape
or contain them.  I feel my importance,  and would no doubt be
inflated with conceit if the deep  sense of my responsible  position  did
not serve  to completely counteract my natural tendency to egotism.
   Liquids and  gases leak through my meshes,  but I hold my grip
on solids,  and it is impossible for these to escape my  embrace  ex-
cept  in a  state  of  solution,  and  whatever  change  in  bodily
structures is accomplished must be secured  by  the  process known
as osmosis, that  is, the transudation of fluids and gases  through the
pores of the various fabrics which  I furnish  for bodily purposes.
                               72 
   Having a decided tendency to porosity in my make-up, it is quite
possible that you may in your minds give me a more or less spongy
character, and  for fear that  by sapping up after the  manner of a
sponge too much of  your time  I will prove the correctness of your
fancy, I  will bid you good day.  I thank you for your kind atten-
tion, and promise you as a reward for your patience an introduction
to our most fascinating entertainer in the person of my brother shape,
the cerebro-spinal man,  whose story cannot fail to command your
profound respect and attention, and is best,told by himself.   The
cerebro-spinal man will be the next one of our  family of shapes to
present his autobiography.
    Moved to gratitude by your kindly bearing, I respectfully  bid
you good day.   But do not forget  in your conceptions of the com-
posite man the entwining characteristics  of  the  connective tissue
shape.
73 
 
 
The Cerebro-Spinal Man.
Drawn by Frederick H. Williams 
IMPERSONATION No.  8.
                   the cerebro-spinal man.
Ladies  and Gentlemen :
   My connective tissue brother has announced me for your enter-
tainment to-day, and here I am.  But I feel my position to be deli-
cate, difficult and embarrassing.   You see, I do not feel quite at ease,
for to give you a fair conception of myself I should have to give
myself away in a good  many respects,  and confession, especially to
brother mortals,  is  rather foreign to my nature.  I do  not mean
that I am not willing to be known as I am, but I question the fairness
of mortal judgment.  In the sight of God I am trying to keep  my
conscience clear, but before men my reasons for doing as I do at all
times and in all  places must frequently be so obscure as to leave
them  guessing.   Nevertheless,  perhaps I can while away a little
time with you pleasantly by  a  brief account of who I am, what I
am, and why I am, furnishing you perhaps something to think about
and give you a pleasant memory of the occasion.  My remarks must
be condensed, for they are expected to be brief.  Unessential details
will therefore be omitted and  your attention invited simply to a
few general conceptions of my characteristics and make-up, conform-
ing to the example set by those of my  brother shapes who have al-
ready appeared before you.
   I see, I hear,  I taste, I smell, I set in motion, I feel,  I  think, I
am, and I am conscious that I  am.  I am the only member of  the
family of whom these statements can be predicated.   The bony eye,
the muscular eye, the  vascular eye, the lymphatic eye, the areolar
eye, in  short, all  the eyes furnished by the other members of our
brotherhood, without me are totally blind.  I grant that the com-
posite eye resulting from the various eyes furnished  by the several
members of our family serves me as a convenient glass through which
to gaze upon  surrounding material shapes;  but I  alone have  the
power to see.  I  must confess  that I am not that  power, and  that
my claim to see is a little overdrawn, for I must own that it is  the
life in me that  sees and not  myself; nevertheless,  being  the direct
75 
medium through which  sight is accomplished it is quite natural  for
me to lay claim to the power of seeing.  The same is true of all  the
senses  as  just  enumerated.   I  am  in  reality the direct means  by
which  all  bodily consciousness  and knowledge and experience  are
accomplished,  and I am capable  by means of my senses not only
of adjusting our common form to outer circumstances but also mak-
ing one part of our body conscious of another part.  I hold indeed
these  various  human shapes of ours in their proper  relationships
to each other, and can  summon any or all of them to my aid if I
will, and  in this way accomplish the  purposes  of life.  They  all
look up to me for  guidance, and not  a step is taken, no work is
planned or lexecuted, no earthly  experience  is had, that does  not
issue  directly  or indirectly through me.
   As a tree plants  its  roots in the earth  and reaches up into  the
air  with its trunk and branches, so do I seem to extend myself in
opposite directions.   On the one hand I am projected  into physical
existence,  upon whose  form you now gaze.  It  is this projection
which  constitutes me a  physical entity  and entitles me to be regis-
tered  as one  of the  brotherhood  of human shapes.  On the  other
hand I reach out into the invisible, the  unseen, the ideal, in which
realm my  impressions are all registered, my purposes all lie,  and  my
calculations are made.  It is in this hidden realm that my  impres-
sions  of the outer world are every one of them  registered, and it
is from these that my  resolutions, which  guide  my every  act,  all
take their issue.
   But I must not confuse your minds by confounding my physical
form with its indwelling vitality.  When I  say that I see, I hear, or
sense  in any way, or act, of course  I predicate this of the conscious
man that operates through me, for my material self, the parts that
can be exposed with the dissecting knife or even  the finer ones that
can be observed only by the aid of  the microscope, the entire  nerv-
ous form that appears before you, are just as inert, inactive and help-
less and dead as are any and  all of our  common brotherhood of
physical shapes, some of whom you have already  listened to and  the
rest of whom you will hear  in the order arranged for  their  appear-
ance.
    The conscious  man  who animates  my  every  part  will tell  you
his  story  toward the close of this  series of  impersonations, and it
behooves me to confine what I have to say to you at the present
time purely to  my  physical make-up.   I  must  therefore  eschew
76 
fancies and philosophies and treat you to merely an enumeration of
physical facts.  And now to my task.
    I  am aware that  I  am a  go-between connecting the outer or
material projection  of our family with the invisible part of us.  By
the aid of  my various  senses impressions  of the outer  world are
received and  orders for the conduct and disposition of the body are
carried out.  I am a hard worker, and consequently require rest for
recuperation.   I really need to spend fully one-third of every twenty-
four hours in unconsciousness, folding all my senses like the petals
of a flower at sunset, in order to be at my best in my earth  work.
    The position which I occupy in my family is a commanding one,
as you see, and would cause me to be its spoiled member if I did not
live in perpetual recognition of  the fact that only by means of my
association with my brother forms has my physical manifestation
been possible.  I know that my arterial brother has brought mejhe
material out  of which  I have been constructed.   I know  that the
venous man, aided by  our  lymphatic  brother,  has removed the
debris occasioned by the wear  and tear of my daily activity.   I know
that my muscular comrade has  served me  as  only a brother could,
rendering the best  obedience to my every command of which he  is
capable.  I know  that  my bony associate  has protected, strength-
ened  and sustained me in all my purposes.  I know that my  connec-
tive tissue brother has contributed generously to my make-up.  I
know that  our skin man especially has afforded me a broad expanse
of  surface  for the  accommodation  of our  common sense of touch.
And I know  equally well that  the other forms of our brotherhood of
shapes, whose acquaintance you are yet to make, have likewise in no
small degree contributed to my  comfort, effectiveness, yes,  the very
necessities  of my material  existence.  You must remember  there  is
no  soloist in  our home orchestra, that every individual of  us  is abso-
lutely essential to the existence and activity of all the rest.   So that
while my manner of introduction may strike you as self-assertive,  in
reality my  spirit is bathed in profound humility in the consciousness
of  my dependence for all that I am, have been, or can be, upon the
other human forms with whom I am associated  in  this  sojourn  of
time.
    A full  and appreciative consciousness, however,  of my personal
powers and importance are not only natural, but perfectly proper.
One has no  more right to underestimate his own God-given posi-
tion and powers than  he  has those  of  another.  And let  me say
77 
in complete refutation of all charges of egotism or self-aggrandize-
ment that I am  no greater than my brothers.  Among us there  is
no high or low.  We are all equal in importance, only we are differ-
ent, and my  initiative  remarks are meant  simply to epitomize my
chief personal characteristics.
   Now, as to my make-up.  In construction you might liken me
to a telephone system.   My central  office is what is known as gray
matter,  and the  issuing wires are  my nerves.  Out of these  two
things, gray  matter and nerves,  am  I  wholly made up.  Let me
invite your attention to my gray matter,  and  then we will consider
my nerves.  You will then know about me all that I feel at liberty
to reveal at the present  time.
   Of  course you  have heard of my brain  and spinal cord, the
former  being contained in the cranial  cavity and the latter dan-
gling down the spinal  canal as far  as the lower border of the first
lumbar  vertebra.  Perhaps you thought that the  spinal cord ex-
tended the whole length of the spinal canal, but if so let me correct
your impression.  The spinal cord goes no  farther than what in
common language is called the small of the back. The spinal canal
below this point is occupied by large bundles of nerves which have
been given off from the spinal cord,  but which have not yet been
able  to  escape through the intervertebral foramina.  As they thus
fill the lower  part of the spinal canal, the fibres of these  nerves lie so
straight and spread-out-like that they bear a very close resemblance
to a  well-formed horse's tail, and hence have been given the name
of cauda equina.
   Now the  gray matter that enters into my formation is  to be
found in  connection with the brain and spinal  cord.   Let me tell
you where to look for it.  Every human being, you know, is sup-
posed to have brains, although from the way some people act you
might think that there  were exceptions to the rule.   Such instances,
however,  are merely cases where the brain  is probably asleep or
defective, and consequently does not do  itself justice.   Now by my
brain you must  understand me to mean the  entire contents of my
cranial cavity. This in itself is a wonderful piece of mechanism that
I should like  to describe to you in detail if it were not foreign to my
present purpose.   As it is, however,  I will permit myself to give you
simply the barest outlines concerning  it,  just  enough  in fact to
acquaint you with my cerebro-spinal shape,  hoping  down in my
heart that I may succeed in  arousing your curiosity sufficiently to
entice you to a more profound and detailed study of my structure
                              78 
 as you will find it laid down in the standard works on human anat-
 omy, for I am sure a careful  study of my organization  will amply
 repay you for all the time and energy you will be able to put upon it.
    My brain has three coverings, called membranes; the outer one,
 or dura mater, adheres closely in every part to the cranial cavity and
 serves to nourish the inner plate of the skull bones which form it;
 the inner one,  known as the pia mater, is a vascular membrane for
 the nourishment of the brain substance itself, while the third mem-
 brane is simply a shut  sac of delicate membranous structure which
 separates  the  dura mater  from the  pia  mater and  is  called  the
 arachnoid membrane, one  surface of it being closely adherent  to
 the dura mater, giving it a smooth, shiny appearance,  and the other
 resting loosely upon the outer surface of the pia mater.
    Perhaps  you did not know that the brain is  constantly active
 and requires this arrangement  of membranes to permit  it to  move
 about easily in its  bony encasement without  friction.  The next
 time you get a chance, just watch the fontanelles of a young babe and
 you will notice that every time the child  inspires, the  fontanelles
 sink  as though the brain were going to cave in and draw the skin
 after  it,  while during  expiration  the  fontanelles bulge instead.
 In  this way is  the  brain constantly  churned up and  down by the
 motion of the lungs,  so that  the  frequency of respiration affects
 profoundly the  amount of blood contained in  the  brain,  and hence
 also its size  and condition.  Besides this the pulsations of the large
 arteries which enter the brain by way of the holes at the base of the
 skull  make the brain substance to its very outer surface quiver with
 every  pulsation.  This  trip-hammer action of  the  blood  stream on
 the brain substance  is unremitting  throughout  life,  so that you can
 readily see that between the influence of the lungs and  the heart's
 action supplemented by the peristaltic movements  of  the arteries,
 the brain is never really at rest.  That it may not be bruised by the
 forces of respiration and circulation which swell its  proportions and
 crowd it against  its bony encasement, or as these  two varying
 pendulums of activity tend to draw away its contents, you will find
 that the center  of the brain is hollow, presenting a wonderfully con-
 structed  cavity  known  as  the  ventricular  space.  As  this space  is
more  or  less filled with serum, which also separates the brain  from
the base  of the skull, you can see that the brain rests upon a water
bed,  which keeps it  from being injured as the respiration and the
varying blood stream alternately expand and contract it.
   The brain is usually described  as  having four  grand  divisions,
79 
known as cerebrum, cerebellum, medulla oblongata and  pons var-
olii.   It is most all cerebrum, however, as this larger part of the
brain fills  the vault of the cranial cavity above the eyes and ears and
extends from the forehead to the occiput.  As far back as the ears
this cerebrum rests also upon the bony surfaces which form the floor
of the cranial  cavity.   This leaves but  a small compartment at the
back and  lower part of the head to be  occupied by the other three
divisions of the brain.  This  little  compartment is separated from
the rest of the cranial cavity by a projection inward of the  dura
mater from the sides and back  of the skull, roofing over the small
part of the cranial cavity occupied by the cerebrum, cerebellum,
medulla oblongata and pons varolii.  It serves as a  tent for these
parts and  prevents the posterior lobes of the cerebrum from resting
down upon them.   Of course it is named, as there  is no  integral
part of anatomical structure which escapes a name.  It is known as
the tentorium  cerebelli.  The cerebellum, or  smaller brain, occupies
the back part of the base of the brain  and is the second part in size.
The medulla oblongata is in reality the  upper end of the spinal cord
expanded  into a club  shape and projected into the  cranial cavity,
resting to the extent of an inch and a quarter along the very base of
the skull.  The pons  varolii  surmounts the medulla and connects
this  with  both the cerebrum and  cerebellum.  Thus is the  pons
varolii  the  veritable  cross-roads of  the  entire  brain.   It is the
connecting link which unites the  four greatest  parts  with  each
other and with themselves.  It rests  on  the  base  of  the  skull
immediately in front  of the  medulla  oblongata.   The  brain sub-
stance itself consists in part of gray matter and  in  part of white,
the white  matter  forming  bundles  of fibers connecting different
parts of the gray  matter,  or  connecting the gray matter with the
other parts of the body.  There is  gray and white matter in every
division of the brain.  In  the cerebrum the  whole surface of it, in
front, behind,  on the sides, above and below, is thickly covered with
layers of gray matter.   The gray matter is about the  color of ashes,
and  hence is otherwise known as cineritious substance.  In the cere-
brum this gray  matter or  cineritious substance not only covers its
entire surface, over  its convolutions  down into  its sulci,  wrap-
ping its lobes and  padding its fissures in layers  of comparatively
uniform thickness,  but is  also found  in  the  center of  the  brain,
the  floor  of what  we have  spoken  of as  the ventricular cavity.
In  this situation it takes  the  form  sometimes of  large knots or
well-rounded accumulations of gray matter called ganglia, and some-
80 
times it  is spread  out  into flat layers variously  known as valves,
commissures, etc.   The names are  of  little consequence, the  chief
point being that gray matter makes  a bark or covering for the cere-
brum, for which reason it is sometimes called the cortex, and is also
found in nuggets, ganglia, or other forms, situated along the floor
of the general  ventricular cavity.   In  the cerebellum a  similar ar-
rangement prevails; that is, the  gray matter covers the surface of
the cerebellum, and some of it is  found in its interior, having tooth-
like  processes known as the dentate body.   The cerebellum,  how-
ever, has no ventricular cavity.  The upper part  of the medulla
oblongata forms the floor of the ventricular cavity, and is gray  with
the ashes of the cineritious substance, there being a thin layer  of it
covering its upper surface, and several spots, where the gray mat-
ter is found accumulated into special ganglia.
    The pons varolii, too, although mostly  constructed of nervous
cords which serve as connecting links between the different  parts
of the brain and between the brain  and the rest of the body, never-
theless is not entirely devoid of gray matter, and has  a  few  ganglia
in its interior.   The pons is continuous  with the upper end of the
medulla  oblongata, and  together with that division of the  brain
ccmpletes  the  lowest  part of the floor of  the ventricular cavity.
Two parts of the brain, therefore, the cerebrum and the cerebellum,
are covered with the gray matter and contain  ganglia.  The  other
two parts, the medulla  oblongata and  the pons  varolii, have no cor-
tex of gray matter, but ganglia of it in their anterior and upon their
upper surfaces.  The gray  matter of  the spinal cord is  all  of  it in
the interior, and if a cross-section is made of the cord, the shape of
the gray matter will be that of a bandy-legged capital letter H, the
legs and the cross-bar being entirely of gray matter, while it is com-
pletely surrounded by white nervous cords proceeding longitudinally
from the  brain and from the gray matter of the cord itself  to their
distal destination in the tissues.   The gray matter in all parts of the
brain and  spinal cord consists  of variously shaped cells, microscop-
ical  in their appearance, but massed together in countless numbers,
of a grayish appearance which has won  for them their name, the gray
substance of the hrain  and spinal cord.
   The nerves to which I  now  invite your  attention are all  to be
traced at their central  or proximal extremity to  the gray matter
of either the brain  or spinal cord.  The white matter of the  brain is
largely made up of nerve fibers or private telephones connecting dif-
ferent parts of the brain.  By means  of  these short nerve  cords or
81 
fibers the gray matter of one part of the cerebrum is held in constant
and  close communication with the gray  substance  of  every  other
part,  so that you will find these fibers  running through the center
of the brain  in every conceivable  direction, some of them running
from before backward, some of them running diagonally, and some
of them running directly from side to side.  The  so-called corpus
callosum,  which can  be  seen by separating the  two halves of the
cerebrum  and looking from  above downward  in the center of the
brain, is nothing but a great flat band of these fibers which runs from
side  to side, forming by its lower surface the roof of the ventricular
cavity.  The white  fibers from the cerebellum  pass from one side to
the other by way  of the pons  varolii, and by legs or crura con-
nect the gray matter  of the cerebellum  with the gray matter of the
cerebrum.
   The arrangement  of the nerve  fibers within the cranial cavity is
extremely intricate  and a fascinating study, as by connecting differ-
ent parts of the brain it permits receiving  impressions systematically
from the outer world and consecutive thinking and harmonious will-
ing and acting, for  only as one set of gray cells knows what another
set is doing can the cranial music make symphonies instead of dis-
cords in the activities of  life. The gray cells are a vast concourse of
intelligences that must act in harmony to co-ordinate thoughts, emo-
tions, and brain activities of all kinds.   My nerves which issue from
my brain and spinal cord and  connect this great  battery of  gray
matter with the human machine which it is to both serve and control
are known as cranial or spinal nerves, according to their origin.  My
cranial nerves, of course, all of them, start in my brain,  and without
exception they start from the base of  the brain.  They have  their
jorigin  along the base of the  brain and find their  exit from the
cranial cavity through holes, large or small according to the size of
the nerves, along its  base.   There are an even dozen of my cranial
nerves  having  various  uses.   Some of them serve as organs of
special sense, while some  of them are just nerves, like the  spinal
nerves.   My story, although it  might be interesting, would be too
long  for the  present occasion if I should  go into a detailed descrip-
tion of my nerves in their various specialties, and I must therefore
desist, although I am strongly tempted  to do so.
    It is simply marvelous how the cells and fibers of one set of my
nerves are so arranged as to  respond to the vibrations of light, those
of another to sound, those  of another to taste,  and  those of another
to smell, and how these faculties are never mixed in their functions,
82 
although to some extent they  supplement each other,  one nerve
taking on in an imperfect manner the functions of another that may
be out of working order.  It seems almost possible in some cases for
the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the tasteless to detect flavors, and
those who  cannot smell to distinguish  odors, vicariously.   But  I
fancy it is all a matter of vibration, and  to do justice to the subject
would require exhaustive research and voluminous  writing; there-
fore this task  will scarcely be expected of me at present.  You are
all  of  you  so accustomed to  each faculty performing its  separate
function that you may not be deeply interested except as a matter of
curiosity in understanding how the ears can see or how eyes can hear;
how smell, or any one of the special faculties can take on the func-
tions of any other; but suffice it for the present to call attention to the
great fact that in five  different ways aside from that of intuition  does
the outer world appeal to my consciousness,  and that all  of these
ways are provided for by five specialized  cranial nerves.   At their
outer or distal extremity they  receive  light or sound or  smell or
taste, as the case  may  be, and convey the impression to the gray
matter, to which their proximal end is connected, and then imprint
upon the receiving tablet of the mind  whatever communication from
the outer world they may  be called upon to convey.  What  the
mind does with these  constantly accumulating reports is for the dis-
cussion of the spiritual or unseen part of our wonderful family, which
has the marvelous power of keeping the faculties at their posts for
further reports, or calling them off, as it  may choose. You know
yourself how eyes that are open sometimes see and sometimes do not,
ears that are in good working order sometimes hear and sometimes do
not, how nostrils sometimes smell and sometimes take no notice of
odors, and how the nerves of taste  sometimes pay attention to flavors
that appeal to  them  and  sometimes seem to  completely  ignore
them.  I do not  suppose that newspapers publish  or act  upon all
the reports that are  handed  in  to them.   No more does the brain
register for practical  purposes all of the vibrations  which  come to
it by way of its various nervous avenues.  But my nerves are always
on guard at any rate,  and are ready for duty whenever summoned to
perform  it.
    Most of my cranial nerves, like my  spinal ones, have a fine
wire  or  thread  known as the axis cylinder, which  is as long as
the course of the nerve extending from its brain cell to its destina-
tion in the tissues.  Wrapping this axis cylinder throughout its entire
length and serving as an insulating  medium to prevent induction
83 
cf the electrical or magnetic forces which serve to convey impres-
sions between the outer world and the gray matter, is what is known
as the  white substance of Schwann, the gelatinous matter of which
completely surrounds the axis  cylinder and protects  it from harm
and the loss of nerve force.  The white substance of Schwann is held
in shape by a tubular membrane known as neurilemma, which like-
wise extends from one end of the nerve filaments to the other.  Nerve
filaments seldom  act singly, but bundles of them  are combined  tj-
gether, and it is these bundles that are known as nerves.  The nerve
filaments  are too small  to  be  seen  by  the  naked eye, but large
bundles of them can be easily distinguished, and it is these bundles
that  can be readily traced by dissection,  and are commonly known
as nerves,  and  have consequently received different names, accord-
ing to their location and destination.
   All the nerves that issue from the spinal cord are known as spinal
nerves, and leave the spinal canal between the various vertebrae of
which  the spine  consists, their openings  or exits being known as
intervertebral foramina.  At their spinal extremity each one starts
by two roots, known as  anterior and posterior roots, the posterior
roots belonging to the nerves  of sensation, and being known as
afferent  nerves,  because  they  convey impressions from sensitive
surfaces  to  the  nerve  centers,  the  anterior  roots  belonging
to motor cords, which are  known as  efferent nerves because they
convey impressions from the nerve centers to the muscles, to some
part  of which they are ultimately distributed.   The nervous trunks
which  we come across in ordinary dissections  are made up of both
the nerves of motion and the nerves of sensation combined together.
The  skin is the  great organ of sensation, and it is consequently upon
its surface that  the sensory nerves are mainly distributed. All bodily
motion,  however, comes  from  muscles,  and consequently it  is to
these structures that the  motor  filaments  are in all cases distributed.
If you can locate any part of my body that does not feel, in case  my
sensory nerves  are in a normal  condition, you will be able to find a
spot to which sensory fibers have not been distributed;  if you can
find  a  muscle that will not contract, provided my motor nerves  are
in a normal state, you will have located a muscle which has received
no motor filaments; but  I think you  will have to  look pretty sharp
for such* a discovery, as a muscle  unsupplied  with  motor nerves
would be a worthless organ, and a skin surface, however small, devoid
of sensation would be a waste area.  From these facts alone you can
judge  how accurately and minutely my nervous cords are laid, to each
                               84 
 and every part of our composite man. I, the cerebro-spinal man, con-
 sider myself the associated press of our family.  By making use of
 the nervous cords which proceed from my nervous centers, bringing
 the various reports  which come to me  from all parts of the human
 anatomy, enabling  me to issue  orders accordingly, I can inform
 every part of what is going on in every other part.  I can spread a
 knowledge of  pain and danger until the entire  organism is thrown
 into  one stupendous panic, that will necessitate the suspension of
 all other business  except attention to  the  disturbance,  or by  sup-
 pressing a report received at my nerve centers and giving no heed to
 localized cries of anguish I can  prevent riots and  consternation of
 bodily  organs,  and permit the composite man to go on  the  even
 tenor of his way, although some local part may be sadly disabled.
 The question of bodily philosophy and bearing rests with my ani-
 mating part.   My  duty is  done  when  my  courier service between
 the inner and outer world is  accomplished.  The  sole  and  simple
 function of my sensory nerves, both spinal and  cranial, is to convey
 impressions  received at the outer or distal ends of sensitive nerve
 filaments to  nerve  centers, and the full duty of my motor nerves,
 both  spinal and those of my cranial nerves set apart for this  pur-
 pose, is accomplished when I convey impulses from the nerve centers
 to  whatever set of muscles is to act.  Of course sometimes my mes-
 sages  involve attacks and sometimes retreats.  Sometimes my com-
 posite man  has to  fight,  sometimes to  pray, and sometimes to die.
 Sometimes he has to work, and sometimes to play.  Sometimes he is
 moved to expressions of keen delight, and sometimes is thrown into a
 physical expression of intense agony. I suppose the postman who col-
 lects letters and distributes them gets interested  in the effects of the
 various messages which he carries to and fro and becomes deeply
 interested in the study of  life which  his avocation permits.  My
 function is quite similar, and that is why I have a tendency, even in
 what  should  be a mere literal  description of my construction  and
 function, to go a little beyond what is expected of me and take some
 notice of passing events.  I like that figure of the postman, it  just
 suits me. I  believe it is  a  fascination  for observing the effects of
 messages which he  carries that makes him contented with his task,
 which  otherwise would be monotonous  in its tireless and meaning-
less routine.  This  is certainly  true of  myself.   I should deem the
carrying of messages from periphery to center,  and  from center to
periphery again, a dull task indeed if I could not have at the same
time the opportunity of studying the effects of my news at both ends
85 
of my nerves.   I told you that some of my messages brainward are
panicky enough, while some are stale enough.  But in all events im-
pressions which I  collect from the outer body and carry to the nerve
centers  of the brain and  spinal  cord are of sufficient variety  and
interest to keep the connecting links between the  nerve centers in
perpetual operation and to put them to their wits' end to know what
disposition  to  make of  the news  brought in.  And on  the other
hand, when the nerve centers decide what is to be done I study with
equal interest the wonderful effect of the messages I carry to the
muscular structures.  I told you the business of life could not go on
without my services,  and I am  newsy  enough in my make-up to
enjoy my task  as a go-between.
   When I speak  of moving muscles, of course I mean the voluntary
muscles. There is  another set of muscles  over  which I have no
jurisdiction, and concerning which -I have nothing to say.   They
have already been mentioned by the muscular man  himself, and  will
be referred to again when my sympathetic brother—and I guess  I
ought to call her  sister  instead—takes the platform, and especially
also by the tubular  man.  You  might infer from  what I have said
to you that from  a  nervous standpoint I myself, the cerebro-spinal
man, am the whole thing, but in  this you are greatly mistaken.  I
have  said nothing of my  sympathetic brother or, more properly,
sister,   for if  there  is  a girl   in  our  family   the  sympathetic
nerve  is she,  simply because she is perfectly capable of  speak-
ing  for herself.   She  has  brains, as  indeed  all  women  have,
and  she is one  of the  women  who knows  how to use  them,
too.   Then, too,  my own story has been so long, and I have
by no means done it ample justice as it is, for I  have had no time
for referring to the other members of the family.  There is no more
interesting  history connected  with our brotherhood of shapes  than
that of the sympathetic man, who will next address you, and  this
shape  is so  quiet  and unobtrusive in  matters  of everyday  life
that most of the next autobiography will be new to you.   Oh, say!
there is so much that I have not told you about myself that I do not
like to stop.  I have not said a word about the manner in which I
am associated  with the sympathetic man, have not touched the  sub-
ject of automatic reflex nerve centers, have not spoken of the tactile
corpuscles by  which my sense of touch is accomplished, have  said
nothing about  diseases  which  are prone  to  afflict me, have not
spoken  of my methods of  development, repair and decay, and I feel
that my nerves of special  sense are feeling considerably slighted  at
                              86 
not having received a more elaborate and extensive mention.  But
nevertheless my main object has been accomplished if  I have im-
pressed upon you the fact that I am a human form, with dimensions
and organs and bodily structures coequal with that of  my brother
shapes.  My height and girt and reach are identical with that of my
brothers.  I, too,  have  head,  eyes, ears,  nose, throat, and organs
coequal with  the rest of  our remarkable family.
   Reckon me,  then, as one  of  the  great brotherhood of  shapes
entering into the formation of the  composite  man,  and I will for-
give myself for not commanding a longer audience before you.
   Do not forget to bring your notebook when my sympathetic
brother addresses you, for  heretofore he has not been sufficiently
noticed in the history of  the human form  divine.
87 
 
 
The Tubular Man.
Drawn by Frederick H. Williams. 
IMPERSONATION No. 9.
                      the tubular man.
Ladies and Gentlemen :
   At the  instigation of our sympathetic brother I appear before
you  on the present occasion  as his substitute.  The reason for
delaying his  appearance  until  another occasion and  asking me to
take his place now is that  what I might tell you of  myself would
make such a good preface  for his story that it would be a serious
mistake to have my name scratched from the list  of human shapes
that  go to make up the composite man.
   Perhaps you did not know of my existence, but I fancy it will
not take me long to convince you that I am entitled to stand before
you as a well-recognized human shape and claim your audience as a
legitimate member of our composite  family.   At any  rate I will do
the best I  can to entertain  you and present  for your consideration
a series of  facts with which every student of  the human form divine
ought  most certainly to make himself familiar.
   My entire structure is  tubular,  as my  name implies, and all
physical expression of life and of death for our entire body is accom-
plished by way of my channels.   With many of the tubes which
enter into my formation I am sure you are familiar, and yet it may
surprise you to know that tubular  structures  are so  thickly dis-
persed throughout the human organism as to enter into the forma-
tion of its every part, so that in me, the tubular man, you will behold
one of the most perfect of  human shapes.
   Let me call  your attention first to the various tubes  which  enter
into my formation, then to the simple and universal method of their
construction, and finally to the purposes which I serve in the family
of human shapes.
   The largest  and most widely known  tube  in my make-up is the
alimentary canal, a tube about twenty-six feet long and extending
from the mouth to the anus, having different names along its course,
the first being  known  as  the  mouth, the next the pharynx,   then
the esophagus,  then the  stomach, then the  small  intestine, under
                              89 
the names  of  the  duodenum,  jejunum and ileum,  and finally  the
large  intestine, described by  anatomists under the  separate heads
of appendix vermiformis, caecum, ascending colon,  hepatic flexure
of the colon, transverse colon,  splenic flexure of the  colon, descend-
ing colon, sigmoid  flexure of the colon, and rectum.
   Perhaps my tube next to  this  in size is the  passageway by
which air reaches  the lungs.   This extensive  tube  is shaped very
much like a tree, having for its trunk the  larynx and trachea, with
a great many branches, growing smaller and smaller as they divide
until they  finally become microscopical in appearance.   The trunk
of my respiratory tree is made  up first of the larynx,  and then of the
trachea, after which come the  innumerable bronchial tubes, the first
two being  large ones, and afterward a continuous set of bronchial
tubes, which increase in number as  they decrease  in size  until they
terminate in exceedingly minute and irregular  shaped expanded  ex-
tremities known as air sacs, which serve as the meeting place of the
blood and the air.  It is from these air sacs  that the blood receives its
breath of life and is transformed from a dark,  purple, muddy, slug-
gish, sewage-laden stream into  the bright red river of  life which flows
out into all the tissues of the body for their nourishment.
   By the way, while speaking of it let me remind you  that three
of the men who have already addressed you are but part of my own
construction.   The arterial man, the venous man, and the  lymphatic
man are  tubes, and as they have already  been paraded before you
as human shapes, and as I embrace all of them and a good many other
tubular  structures  besides,  you  can readily see  what  an injustice
would have been done me if my sympathetic brother had not been
thoughtful enough to insist upon my  taking the floor and present-
ing myself to  you  as a well-recognized member of our  brotherhood
of forms.  The involuntary part of the muscular  man also made
brief  mention of my existence, but scarcely  did me  justice, and
hence the necessity of my appearing before you in  person.  I  ven-
ture to  say that neither my arterial,  venous or lymphatic brother
mentioned  to  you the fact of my  existence,  and  that they were
merely parts  of my more perfect shape.   Their carelessness in the
matter, however, must have been purely an oversight.  You might
think it was jealousy, but please be  assured that in  our harmonious
family jealousy  is unknown and only by  mutual help and  respect
can we work  out  harmoniously the purposes  of our common life;
and  if my existence had not been recognized even  by the sym-
pathetic  man  and  I  had not had the  pleasure of appearing on the
                               90 
program of your entertainment at all,  I should  have had no hard
feelings in the matter and have registered  with  you no complaint.
At the same time I am glad not to be left out, and I wish to thank
my sympathetic brother for his kindness in  finding a proper oppor-
tunity for  me to present  you with an  epitomized statement of  the
principal facts of my existence.
   You will  remember, perhaps, that the skin man  made mention
of the innumerable sweat and sebaceous  glands and hair follicles with
which his  surface  was so thickly studded in every part.   Please
remember that all these are a part of my own make-up, being nothing
more nor less than tubular structures,  varying somewhat in shape.
Corresponding to these minute tubules on the surface  of the body
are the mucous glands, peptic glands, Brunner's  glands, and crypts
of Lieberkuhn and simple  follicles,  which  honeycomb the surface
of my  alimentary  canal, and  indeed all mucous  surfaces present
some  type of  minute   tubular  structure.   The salivary  glands
and  the pancreas  are nothing but tubes  expanded  into racemose
shape.  The kidneys consist almost  entirely of  minute uriniferous
tubules,  which are straight in the pyramids and more or less tor-
tuous in  the cortical substance.   All  these  multitudes  of minute
kidney tubes empty into the  expanded  tube which occupies the pel-
vis of the  kidney, which  terminates below on either side  in another
tube known as the ureter, at whose lower termination is  an expanded
tube  known  as the bladder, out of  which  empties  the single  tube
universally described as the urethra.
   The structure of  the  testicle  is tubular  like that  of the kidney,
and is provided with a single tube, the vas deferens, which serves for
the passage of the semen  from the testicles into the prostatic portion
of the urethra.  The prostatic gland itself consists in a great measure
of a dozen or fifteen racemose glands known  as the prostatic ducts.
    In the  female the vagina is a tube,  the uterus is a tube, and the
fallopian  tubes which connect  the cavity  of  the uterus with  the
peritoneal  cavity define their nature in their name.  They are simply
tubes  for  the passage of the ova from the ovaries  to the uterine
cavity.
    I  did not mention our nose, but everybody knows that its prom-
inence merely stands for a cavity,  from  which there are tubular
branches into the frontal sinuses,  ethmoidal sinuses, and the cranial
cavity, backward by way  of the eustachian tubes  into the middle  ear,
laterally into  the maxillary sinuses known as the antrums of High-
more, and posteriorly into the pharynx. You have heard how fleas
                                91 
have other fleas to bite 'em, and so on ad infinitum.   Well,  quite
similarly, my larger tubes have smaller tubes to feed them, for all
of my mucous membrane tubes are lined by  mucous glands, which
are likewise tubular in their structure.
   Now  in view1  of all  these facts  do you really think that I was
extravagant in  my claim to being one of  the most  perfect of our
brotherhood of shapes?
   In structure my tubes  of  which  I  consist are  all built  on a
common  plan which is  very simple.   Without exception, whether
the tubes  be  little or big,  microscopical  or apparent to the naked
eye, they consist of three coats; their  inner coat consisting of what
is known  as mucous or serous membrane  as the case may be,  the
difference between  the two being merely a difference in the  form
of the epithelial structure  which covers their surface and the  pres-
ence or absence of tributary glands;  an outer coat, which is con-
structed by the connective tissue man  and made up of white fibres;
and a middle or  muscular coat.  In  this muscular  coat  the fibres
are arranged in two directions,  some  of the fibres  running longi-
tudinally,  so that  when  they contract  they  shorten the tubes which
they surround,  and others  running circularly, so as  to narrow the
caliber of the tube  by a squeezing process  whenever they contract.
By this method of simultaneously shortening and squeezing, very
much after the manner in which a cow is milked, all my tubes, little
and big, are made to undergo what  is known as vermicular  motion,
or peristaltic action.  Some  of   my  tubes  carry gases like  the
bronchial  tubes, and the intestinal tract  at  times;  some  of  them
carry solids, like  the alimentary canal; and  some of them  liquids,
like the various tubes  which constitute the urinary tract, like  the
sweat and sebaceous glands and hair  follicles, like the mucous and
other glands opening on mucous surfaces, like the salivary glands
and pancreas, like the gall bladder and gall  ducts,  and like the blood
vessels and lymphatics.  But it matters not whether  my tubes con-
vey from one part of the body into the other, gases, liquids or solids,
their function is  universally accomplished  by this same worm-like
motion known as  peristaltic action.  The  involuntary muscles which
accomplish this wavelike squeezing and  shortening  process of  my
tubes are  not under the control of the cerebro-spinal man,  but  are
presided  over solely by my sympathetic  brother, and  between you
and me this is why the  sympathetic man did not feel  like addressing
you to-night, but  presented me  before you as his substitute.   He
wanted  you to realize  before he appeared upon the  platform  the
92 
extensive field of operations  of myself,  the  tubular man.  When
you stop to think that  I  carry the breath of life whose inward
current is laden with oxygen and whose outward current is charged
with carbonic acid gas and moisture, that I receive and disburse all the
solids and liquids and gases which are taken into the body,  and have
the labor of transporting to their destination all those which pass out
of the  body, thus furnishing the entire system of supply and funeral
trains  for the whole of our common form, you  will readily see that
my shape must be coextensive with that of every one of my brother
forms.  In reality, I have in my keeping the entire bodily commerce,
 with the solitary  exception  of the  activity  which  results  from
chemism.  My tubes  are all of them a little leaky, especially those
which  serve as conduits  for liquids, so that in many places the con-
tents of my tubular structures  sweat through my walls in minute
drops,  which are  received into the various structures through which
I pass.  In the same manner tissues which are saturated with liquids
can be relieved  by a corresponding leakage into my  interlacing
canals.  This process by  which liquids pass through my walls to and
from the tissues is known as osmosis.  When liquids leave my canals
and leak oujf  into the tissues,  such action is known  as exosmosis.
When  liquids find  their  way from the tissues  of  the body into my
canals, the process is known as endosmosis.   But the term osmosis
includes both processes.   Now, except  osmosis,  which is what  I
recently spoke of as bodily chemism, every form  of activity in the
human body is accomplished by myself.  I bring all the materials,
solids,  liquids  and gases which are employed  in  the construction
of the  human body to their several destinations, and by my channels
of exit carry away all the solids, liquids  and gases which constitute
bodily  debris.   Thus do I dominate the entire bodily commerce, ancj
hence  the necessity of my shape being  so  perfect as  to reach  the
remotest recesses of our common bodily  construction.
    I have made  my  remarks as brief and epitomized as  possible,
but trust that I  have  succeeded in  sufficiently clearing a  way  for
my sympathetic brother  so that he can  now address  you without
further embarrassment.  What he will desire you to remember most
of all,  I think, is this series of consecutive  facts: that with the excep-
tion of osmosis the entire commerce of the body is conducted by the
tubular man, that his method of doing this is known  as peristaltic
action,  that  peristaltic action is in all tubular  structures,  from  the
sweat glands to the alimentary canal, effected by the system of invol-
untary muscles, that  muscles never  act  except under  the impulse
93 
 of nervous stimulus, and that the nervous stimulus which furnishes
 the motive power for the entire set of  involuntary muscles,  whose
 office is to form the effective working coat of all the tubes, great and
 small, is furnished solely by the sympathetic man.
    Now, my sympathetic brother,  I  hope I  have presented the
 situation to  your entire satisfaction, and as you  have no further
 excuse to delay your appearance you will present yourself to this
 audience at  its next meeting and tell the story  of  your life in a
 manner  creditable to yourself.
    Ladies and gentlemen,  we are  all  proud  of  our sympathetic
 brother, so proud that however  well he may present to you the story
 of his structure and function he  will find it difficult to frame language
 adequate to  his  purpose.   Words are  such poor  and  inadequate
 vehicles for  human expression.  Our sympathetic  brother is really
 the inspiration of our  whole family, and I am only his John the
 Baptist, running before him, fully  realizing that he who comes after
 me is greater than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy  to
 unloose.  The  medical  world, and much less the laity, are not yet
 capable  of fully comprehending the  wonderful  achievements  of the
 sympathetic  man.  And to make matters still worse, he is of such
 a modest nature that although you will find what he  has  to say con-
 cerning himself exceedingly interesting  and instructive, we none  of
■ us, although his brother shapes, have the least idea that he will suc-
 ceed  in  giving you an  adequate impression as  to his influence and
 importance in our family of human shapes known to you as the com-
 posite man.
    I  leave you now to be entertained  at your next gathering by
 the presiding genius of our family, the  sympathetic man.
94 
 
The Sympathetic Man
Drawn by Frederick H. Williams. 
IMPERSONATION No.  10.
                    the  sympathetic man.
Ladies and Gentlemen :
   I feel deeply grateful to my brother, the tubular man, for pre-
ceding me on the program prepared for your consideration by our
family of human shapes.  You see he has no tissue peculiar to him-
self, but is made  up entirely of contributions from other  members
of our family, taking his outer coat from the areolar man, his middle
coat-from the muscular man, and his inner coat from the skin man,
and claiming a part of the vascular and lymphatic men as belonging
to himself, and altogether, as he is so apparently lacking in  individu-
ality, he is seldom looked upon by casual observers as a distinct mem-
ber of our composite family. And yet, as I think he has convinced
you, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, he has his individ-
uality and is really possessed of as perfect a shape as any of us, and is
by no means the  least important member of our family.   Hence it
was  proper that he, as well  as his brothers, should appear  upon the
platform and make  his autobiographic  remarks.  His speech was
not quite  as comprehensive as  it  might have been, as  I  think he
felt sort of half forgotten, and  that he was really made use of as a
forerunner of myself, and  so  got through with  the  occasion as
cheaply as possible.   However,  his remarks were  sufficiently com-
plete to serve as an  appropriate  introduction to the story which with
your forbearance it  is now my place to tell.
   I  feel  as  though the  cerebro-spinal man,  if he  had been so
inclined, could have made my task an easier one,  but undoubtedly
he either thought  it would  please you  better  to have me tell  my
own story, although he knew my natural diffidence and inexperience
in speaking,  or else  he had  exaggerated ideas  of my being able to
take care of myself on the platform without his  friendly assistance.
It seems to me that he should have been much kinder than this, for
our lives are so closely entwined that much of our work is in common
and he knows all about me,  and can  talk so much better than I  can
that I confess to a little disappointment that he did not find it in his
95 
heart to lighten my task by making more extended reference than
he has seen fit to do to the part which I play in the human economy.
So with thanks to the tubular man for his generosity, and regrets
to the cerebro-spinal man for his lack  of the same  quality, I shall
proceed with my story as best I can.
   You know that the  cerebro-spinal  brother and  myself  are  the
sole  means  by  which life flows  in  from its  unseen sources and
animates our composite  nature.   Not a sensation is recorded,  not
a muscle is  moved, not  a function is performed, not a shadow of
growth  or  repair takes  place in the human body that is not pre-
sided  over  and accomplished by  means  of  nervous messages  for
which one or both of us  are responsible.  Now the cerebro-spinal
man has already addressed you, and you will remember something
of the part which he plays in our family of shapes.  The part which
I play is the part which he leaves unperformed.   He is busy with the
sensations of consciousness, which include the five senses, and .with
all physical activities that are under the influence of the same.  That
is, he can walk and talk and dominate the  entire system of voluntary
muscles to his heart's content so long as they have strength enough
to follow his bidding.  But as the tubular man has  told you, there
is a set of  muscles over  which he has no control, and  those  are
the muscles  which are known as the involuntary type and constitute
one of the coats of the tubular man, and the action of these muscles,
and consequently the entire activity of the tubular  man, is wholly  •<
dependent upon me.  The heart  cannot throb, the  arteries cannot
pulsate, the air cannot reach the  lungs, the  blood cannot get back
to the  heart, the various glands and tubular structures of  the
body  cannot work;  in  short,  no  bodily  commerce  whatever
can  be  accomplished  except  under  my  direct   and  personal
supervision.  The cerebro-spinal  system  may boast of his senses
and his power to transport the body from place to place and employ
it to his liking, but he would have no body to domineer over if it were
not for me.   Body building and repairing are my personal function,
and my task is so confining that it would be a wearisome one indeed
if it were not a labor of love.   You see the cerebro-spinal man can
sleep eight hours out of the twenty-four and loaf a good deal of the
remaining time  if he chooses to do so.  But if I should sleep for an
hour our entire family would be completely wiped out of existence;
and whenever I even slow up or drag in my work, as I sometimes do
from sheer  exhaustion, serious mischief is sure to be visited upon
96 
some part of the human body, and the loss must be quickly made up
or serious disaster is sure to follow.
   The tubular man has told you that he is responsible for all bodily
commerce, for all organic activity,  for all  body building  and re-
pairing, as no building or renewal of physical  texture  can be ac-
complished  except through  his agency.  Now while that  is  true,
it is equally true that it is myself who furnishes the tubular man with
all  his  inspiration.  I am the steam  which  runs his  machinery.
Without me he can do nothing.   So long as I am vigorous and in
good working order  the  tubular /nan can  perform his important
functions in a satisfactory manner,  but when I am weak  or  from
any cause run down so that I am  unable to furnish the tubular man
with the customary amount of inspiration all the wheels of the human
organism run more slowly, and some of them are sure to clog, and
the entire body becomes  like sweet bells  jangling out of tune.  So
you  see I must be the first human shape to be born, the last one to
die, and must be in such constant  and forceful presence as to supply
the tubular man  constantly with all the stimulus which he  needs
for  his  important operations.   The body  can  do  nothing  with-
out me, and my occupation  of  supplying  the inspiration  for our
entire  family is so constant and  engaging that  I  am compelled to
attend strictly to business night and day from one end of life to the
other and have no time whatever  for  observation, education or
amusement outside of my daily  tasks.   As a rule,  I perform my
work so noiselessly that  the rest of the  family are scarcely con-
scious  of my existence, for when I am  well everything works all
right, each organ plays its part as  usual, and the whole machinery of
life  is  operated  quietly  and without  friction.   When I  am not
well, however, and am not quite  equal to the demands  made  upon
me,  I  have  two  ways of making  it known to the  family.   One
is  by appealing to self-consciousness through the assistance of my
cerebro-spinal brother, with  whom I am  closely  associated, thereby
causing some disturbance  of sensation or locomotion (the most fre-
quent disturbance in this direction  being  the instituting of  some
form of pain) ; or I sometimes take  it into my head to say nothing
to my cerebro-spinal brother  about my affairs, but simply shirk my
duties, and my inefficiency becomes manifest only when some one or
all of the organs  suffer from some function poorly performed.
   There are two  of our brotherhood  that belong to  the unseen
realm.   One of them is  known as  the conscious and the other as
97 
the sub-conscious man.   The  conscious man inhabits the cerebro-
spinal system.  My own organization is the dwelling place for the
sub-conscious man.  These human shapes are to address you as best
they can in  a short time.  My purpose in  making any mention of
them in the present connection is to inform you that it is through
my agency that the intuitions  and  impulses and inspirations of the
sub-conscious man flow out into the bodily tissues and move and in-
vite the composite man to some form of activity.  So  you see that in
a way the important powers which  I have been arrogating to myself
are really those of the sub-conscious man, and I am simply the humble
instrument by which he exercises his influence in the bodily counsels.
Just as the tubular man acts as my agent for carrying out my pur-
poses in the human economy, so am I merely the agent  of the sub-con-
scious man.  Hence  although  it may appear to you  that I talk as
though  I  had power  within myself it is  always with this mental
reservation,  acknowledging  my entire dependence  upon  the soul
within me, who will claim your attention later.   I am, then, simply
his messenger or agent.
    Now. like any  other messenger or agent,  if I am well and in
good working order  I transmit  these emotions and  inspirations to
the conscious man for his  consideration  and judgment  with  accu-
racy and clearness, but if I am exhausted or ill-conditioned in  any-
way and the rhythm  of my usually harmonious activity is in the
slightest disturbed  I am unable to perform satisfactorily this highest
duty of my life.  You know that it takes a glass perfectly smooth
and without a flaw to transmit white light  unbroken. Distorted or
imperfect glass will break up rays of white light which are passed
through  it  into rainbow hues,  so that  it  gives the observer  an
erroneous impression of the  nature of light itself.   In  much the
same way may clean  purposes, wholesome aspirations, worthy im-
pulses, heaven-sent inspirations intrusted to me for  delivery  to the
composite man be delivered by me  as faithfully and true as they
were received if I am in a normal  state.  But unfortunately if from
any cause whatever my strength is weakened or the rhythm  of my
various parts disturbed, as these various messages pass through my
organism on their way to the tissues, they are changed in their color-
ing, distorted in their meaning, converted into different and unworthy
messages  from mind to matter, thereby  transforming truth  into
falsity, good into evil, virtue into vice, and very generally  upsetting
the moral, intellectual and physical standards of excellence accord-
ing to the degree of my disability as I undertake the task of convey-
                               98 
 ing to  the  various  bodily tissues  the  messages with  which I am
 intrusted by the sub-conscious man who dwells within me.  In other
 words,  to put this same thought in plainer language, for I feel that
 I have  but  poorly expressed  it as it is, you cannot transmit white
 light through crooked  glass, you cannot  produce good music upon
 an  instrument  which  is  out  of tune, nor can  the  body  receive
 clean inspirations and impulses when the sympathetic nervous man,
 through whom  only they can  be transmitted from mind to  matter,
 is ill-conditioned.  Such being the case, you would naturally think
 that my importance would  long since  have been recognized by the
 medical profession, and by the laity as well, and that the study of the
 waste and repair of the sympathetic nerve would have been regarded
 as  one  of vital  importance.  Astonishing as it may seem,  however,
 it is only of recent years that much notice has been taken of me; and
 although I  am  responsible for all bodily  conditions, the manner in
 which  every  organ in the  entire body performs its  function,  my
 characteristics,  habits and necessities have been badly slighted.  If
 I do my duty on the present occasion, however, I am sure  such will
 no  longer be the case with those who are within sound of my voice,
 for you will be made to  realize that it is through my  agency  only
 that physical perfection can be attained and  physical defects, either
 inherited or acquired, can be corrected.  But  I  have  detained you
 long enough with generalities,  and now  to the more  specific busi-
 ness which  is expected of me on the present occasion.
    I must  first tell you  something of my physical make-up, and
 then furnish you with brief  references to my physiology. Of  course,
 like my brothers, I am  prone to sickness and can get up as interest-
 ing pathology when conditions are right as any of my  fellows, but
 pathological considerations would have to be extensive to do them
 justice  on the present  occasion, and so will be omitted.  So,  first
 of all, permit me to make brief reference to my  anatomical structure.
    Like my cerebro-spinal brother, my entire  shape is  made up  of
 nerve centers and nerve cords issuing to and from them.  My nerve
 centers  constitute my brains, and these, I must confess, are  a little
 scattered.  But it doesn't matter much,  for I have very little think-
 ing to do; in fact, I never  reason about anything.   I have a splendid
 memory, for my activities are  almost entirely automatic.  The nerve
 centers  in my cerebro-spinal brother are massed together and con-
 stitute a tremendous nervous battery, which acts as the  phonograph
of life,  for  he not only receives impressions  but  talks back,  and
does not always use good language either,  and you can never tell
99 
what reply he is going to make to impressions received.  W ith me
it is different.  I always  give the same answer to the same impres-
sions so long as I am in good health and able to do so, and no amount
of education or training seems able  to  change my nature.  This,
of course, makes me very reliable, and adapts me  well for my posi-
tion as a steady provider  of the force which propels all of our bodily
machinery.  My brains are so widely scattered  that you will find
fragments of them in almost every organ of the body.  I provide
separate nerve centers for the heart, for the lungs, for the liver, for
the kidneys,  for the spleen, for the brain,  for the intestinal tract,
for the bladder, for the uterus, for the prostate gland, and indeed for
all  the  so-called  vital organs.  Beside  these  small  fragments  of
brain  tissue which are located  in the various organs, the principal
part of my brain substance consists in small knots or ganglia of gray
matter,  arranged longitudinally«in two nervous tracks, which extend
in front of the spinal column from the base of the skull to the coccyx.
These sympathetic ganglia of mine are arranged  as practically one
ganglia for each vertebra.  In some places, however, as for instance
in the neck,  two or three  of  the ganglia are so  closely  related  as
to practically form one, so that instead of there being seven ganglia
for the neck corresponding to the number  of vertebrae, there  are
only three on each side, and in the dorsal  region instead of there
being twelve ganglia there are only eleven.  In the lumbar region,
however, there are  five, and in the sacral region there are five,
besides   the  ganglion  impar  (situated  in  front of the  coccyx),
in which the lower ends of the chains of  ganglia are united.  I have
called  these  two rows  of  ganglia chains.   They are  much more
like strings of beads, for although they are very small affairs, the
larger ones being but little bigger than a pea, they are connected
by nervous cords so as to form one continuous string on each side.
I have  four ganglia also on each side located under the skull, all of
them  being closely associated with the  fifth nerve of  the  cerebro-
spinal man, which is the nerve of sensation for the head and face.
One of these ganglia is in  the orbit and communicates with the  so-
called supra-orbital nerve.  One of them is located right back of the
upper jaw in a cavity known as the spheno-maxillary  fossa, and is
fastened to the superior maxillary nerve  or the one  that supplies
the upper teeth and the  middle of the face.  A third one hugs the
base of the skull just where the inferior maxillary nerve,  which is
the one which supplies  the lower teeth and the  lower part of  the
100 
face,  comes out of the skull, the opening being called the foramen
ovale; while a fourth one is located right under the lower jaw  in
close  association with one  of the  salivary glands.   This one, too,
has a close association  with the  inferior maxillary nerve.   There
is one  other  place  in which are  collected together several  large
ganglia, constituting the most pronounced association of nervous
matter  in my entire organization.   It  is located right back  of the
stomach, and from it issue the nerves which proceed in every possible
direction, and hence it is called the  solar  plexus.  So conspicuous
is this collection of gray matter that I have permitted it to be called
the  abdominal  brain.   This important  place  seems to  be  better
appreciated by pugilists than by doctors, more  is the pity.
    Now while the cerebro-spinal man has his separate duty to per-
form in pur family  of shapes, and while  I  also  have mine, you will
understand how close is our association when I tell you  that every
one of the ganglia which forms the string of nervous matter extend-
ing on  either side in  front  of the spinal column from the base of
the skull to the coccyx has issuing from it a nervous filament which
passes  backward  to mingle with the nearest  spinal nerve  as  it
issues from the spinal canal.   Aside from giving off this filament
to the cerebro-spinal system, it receives a filament from the cerebro-
spinal  system  in  return.   Thus  there is  not  one of my ganglia
which does  not have a double communication with the cerebro-spinal
man at  its root, one nerve going from the ganglia to  a cerebro-spinal
nerve, and one nerve proceeding from  the  cerebro-spinal system to
the ganglia; so that  we can talk to each other at the same time that
we listen.
   In addition to this the cerebro-spinal man and myself are closely
associated in what  is  perhaps the most  important  function of the
human  economy, and that  is the circulation of the blood.   When
the muscular man addressed  you, you will remember he spoke of his
voluntary fibers, which are under the control of the cerebro-spinal
man.   He also told  you of  the involuntary muscular fibers which
were  under my control.  The tubular man told  you the same thing,
except  that  he did  not say  so  much about the  voluntary muscles,
because he  had nothing whatever  to  do  with them, his activity
being dependent solely upon  the involuntary muscles.  Now, as you
have been told by both of these brothers of mine, the middle coat
of the arteries, and of the veins also,  is muscular, and the muscular
fibers are of the involuntary type, and consequently are properly
101 
under my personal jurisdiction.  And so they are, at all times,  day
and night.  But I wonder if you realize how important to our family
is the circulation of the blood.
   The arterial and venous men have both spoken to you upon the
subject, but for fear you have forgotten it I wish to remind you that
the circulation  of the  blood  is responsible  for  all bodily  changes.
Not  a cell ever reaches  its  destination in the tissues of the body
that  is  not floated there by the  blood  stream,  and  not  a bit of
waste matter is carried away that does not eventually find its' way
into  the blood  stream, which in its course  carries it to its avenue
of exit.  The circulation of  the blood, then, is all  that builds the
body,  or all  that pulls it  down.  There  is,  then, no  remedial
measure which is serviceable  in the healing of the sick that does not
accomplish its purpose by  influencing  the circulation  of the blood,
either  locally  or  generally.  Now I can take  care of  this  blood
stream all right, for I do so when the cerebro-spinal man is either in
a natural or induced sleep.  I do it when he is under  an anesthetic, I
do it when he is under hypnotic influence, I do it when he is busy, I do
it every night when he goes into voluntary inactivity,  I do it when he
is disabled by concussions and shocks that are severe enough to put
him to sleep, but not severe enough to disable me also.  But my cere-
bro-spinal brother is a little jealous of my power, or else he is anxious
to befriend me in this, my  most important task,  whichever way  you
choose to interpret his motives.  At any rate, he does not leave me in
sole possession of the involuntary muscular fibers which surround the
arteries and veins, and which consequently are responsible for the
pulse beat  and the return of the blood stream.  For this important
purpose the terminal nerve  fibers of the cerebro-spinal man and those
of my own intermingle so closely as to scarcely be distinguished from
each other, thus furnishing a  separate nervous system called the vaso
motor,  which  dominates  the  entire  circulation.   In  this  way
either of us can hurry the heart's action or slow it, can blush or pale
an organ, can influence the  blood supply to any part of the body. You
watch any face when the conscious man is contemplating an  object
which he dearly loves.  The  blush which then suffuses the face his
thoughts and feelings are entirely  responsible  for.  On the other
hand, when the stomach is overloaded and  I have more than I can
do to carry on the processes of digestion, and as a result the arteries
of the head do not get my usual  supply  of  nervous force  to make
them contract as they should, but  remain too full of blood,  our face
is then made red and the blush which suffuses it has nothing to do
                             102 
with the thoughts and feelings, but is simply because my own work
is  poorly  accomplished.   So that either  of us,  the cerebro-spinal
man or myself, can blush or  pale  a face.   Now,  I  have used
the face simply as an illustration.  But his thoughts and feelings can
in a like manner influence the  respiration.  They  can in a like man-
ner influence the action of the heart, they can in  a like manner dis-
tend or contract the liver, they can in a  like manner influence the
action  of the kidneys and bladder.  In fact, they can blush or pale
any  part of our common organism,, either internally or  externally.
And so can I.  And the way  he accomplishes his purpose is in a
manner similar to my own, viz, by the influence  which I can  bring
to  bear upon  any part of the  blood stream.   So while  we are
closely united, as you have seen, at our nervous centers, my ganglia
communicating with his nerves, and his nerves communicating with
my ganglia, we also meet in a still closer association if possible upon
the coats  of the blood vessels.  All other involuntary muscles are
under  my personal control, and he is unable to influence this special
function of mine except as he accomplishes it by way of the circula-
tion of the blood.  Of course I can influence his  voluntary muscles,
for I can starve them or feed them, but as he influences my domain
by acting through the blood  stream,  I  return  the  compliment.
You see that in the blood stream as well as at the nervous centers we
are so  closely  united that many anatomists say that we are not dis-
tinct organizations, but simply two parts of a whole.  Into this deep
question of our personal identity, however, I do not propose to enter
upon the  present occasion, suffice it to say that  in our own minds
we are perfectly satisfied that while we have much in common we
have each much that is not in common, both in the matter of sensa-
tions and  of emotions, so that  in our hearts we well know that we
each have an individuality of our own,  and hence have thought
impulses to activity which are quite different.  His activities are all  in
the realm  of consciousness, while mine are purely automatic.  If you
put a ball into his hand, he can  hold  it or  let it go as he chooses.
If you distend one of the tubes which I supply  with nervous force
with anything solid, liquid or gaseous,  and put my muscles  on
the stretch, just as sure as I am in working order I will  induce the
muscular  fibers to contract upon the same, and  have no power  in
myself to  order otherwise.  This  may seem to you a weakness upon
my part, a lack of judgment, an absence of reason, and perhaps this
is  so; at the same time it  has  the great advantage of  furnishing a
103 
 reliable supply of nervous power for the rhythmical action of all the
 various organs of the body.
    I told you that small fragments of my brain substance were to be
 found in the various  organs of the body.  By this arrangement,
 owing to my automatic action, each organ is more or less a law  unto
 itself, and is capable of sustaining a rhythm or definite time of action
 peculiar to itself and  irrespective of the  other  organs.  By means
 of this arrangement the lungs have a certain rhythm, their customary
 rate of action being about sixteen times per minute.  The heart and
 arteries  have  another  rhythm.  Their beat,  as  you  know,  is from
 sixty  to seventy times a minute in  average  persons.  In the same
 way the stomach has a rhythm.  The small intestine has a different
 rhythm,  and  the large intestine a still different  one.  The liver has
 a rhythm, and so has  the spleen, and so have the kidneys, likewise
 the bladder, the uterus, and in fact the same is true of all the impor-
 tant organs.   Now in health, although the rhythm of the various or-
 gans is  quite different, nevertheless  they are so arranged as to work
 harmoniously together, constituting the sublimest symphony in all
 creation, for there is  no grander music in the entire universe than the
 harmonious action of the various organs  in a healthy human being.
 It is interesting to watch the evolution of a musical theme by a large
 orchestra.  The violins and  cellos,  the bass viols, and  flutes, the
 horns, and  harps,  and drums,  each having its separate  part  to
 play, and yet with such due respect to the other parts of the orchestra
 as to  blend harmoniously in the general flow of a musical creation,
 which sometimes marches like  the tread  of an army,  sometimes
 fades  like a dying day, sometimes sounds like a choir of angels, and
 sometimes deep-voiced, like the rage of a storm.  In short, there is
 scarcely  a human experience in the  realm  of thought and emotion
 that cannot be symbolized  in  music and recognized  as  true to life
 when  properly interpreted by a  well trained orchestra.  But the
 symphony of life as displayed by the organs of a living, thinking,
 feeling,  throbbing, active  human body in  perfect health is vastly
grander in its conception and in its  accomplishment, and the human
being  that  has tuned his  senses to an appreciation  of  bodily  har-
monies as they are evolved by the different parts of his own organiza-
tion in harmonious action, has the privilege of daily concert  per-
formances by  the side  of which the feeble efforts of  man's  created
orchestras are positively puerile.
    Before dismissing the comparison of  the music of the  organs
with that of  an  orchestra it may be  well to call your attention  to
                              104 
another point of similarity.  In an  orchestra if  one of  the  instru-
ments be out of tune or out of time the harmony of the musical feast
is  more or less seriously disturbed according to  the prominence of
the instrument involved.  This is equally true of the great orchestra
of the human organs.  If the  rhythm of any one of them  is dis-
turbed by any type  of irritation so  that  its  rhythmical  function is
interfered with "the  symphony of life  is materially  disturbed and
sooner or later the music of health is  transformed  into the bodily
discord known as disease.  Please recall what I have just said con-
cerning the transmission  of  white light  through crooked  and dis-
torted glass; how it is broken  up into rainbow hues,  and  does not
appear to the observer as white light.   And  also recall the applica-
tion of the  illustration to  the  human  body.   All desires,  impulses
and inspirations entering the subconscious man by way of the sympa-
thetic nerve as pure and true and worthy as the  source  of all good
can start them, are turned and distorted into  their opposites by hav-
ing to pass through  disordered conditions of the  sympathetic nerve.
Both of these illustrations, that  of the light and that of the orchestra,
are perfectly true to life, and by the aid of  one  or both of them I
hope you will be able to understand  how important it  is that my
entire organization should be kept in  the most perfect order.
    Right here I have it in my heart to detain  you  longer and divulge
for your benefit a long array of new truth concerning myself which
has recently come into the world, which is in direct keeping with what
I have just said  to you.  But my remarks are already long drawn
out, and if I should once get started upon  this subject I fear that you
would weary of my story.  At  any rate, it would make my own re-
marks out of proportion to the modest speeches which have been made
by  my brother shapes, and I shall not abuse my present  privilege
by turning liberty into license.  I must make  my speech brief, as my
other brothers have done, and consequently must leave the multitude
of things unsaid which my heart is burning to tell you of.  Perhaps
we may meet again, and if I have said enough to awaken your inter-
est in my history we certainly  shall.  For now that my  importance
as an agent for either health or  disease,  for life or for death, is being
gradually recognized  by the medical profession  who has  the well
being of the world in its hands, I begin to hope that the embarrass-
ment  under  which I have so  far labored will be materially lessened
and the influence which I wield in our  family of forms will be more
frequently made use of in righting matters when they go wrong in
the composite man, to whom  we all humbly bow as the one purpose
105 
for which we are all created.  As the whole is greater than its parts,
so the composite man is greater than any of us, and  what is good
for him is good for us.  So we must  wait our turn for audience, for
appreciation,  for attention.  If any remark  which I have dropped
has aroused the curiosity of any of my audience to learn more of me,
be  sure that the knowledge now  in the world is quite sufficient
to give you much satisfaction and amply repay you  for whatever
investigation  you may choose to make. I may be such a fool that I
cannot reason or cannot tell the difference whether  the involuntary
muscular  fibers  which I  supply are inclosing a substance which
should be  squeezed along the tube which contains it; or whether the
distension of  the involuntary fibers is due to a diseased state of the
membrane which lines the tube.  I  may be fool enough to try to
induce a throat to swallow itself when it is sore, a bladder to  strain
after  all urine is passed and only an inflamed lining is stimulating
the muscular  coat to activity; I may be silly enough to strain at stool
when there is no fecal matter in the rectum, but only a swollen mem-
brane ; may show, indeed, a lack of intelligent discrimination in many
of my acts; but you may rely upon one thing:  I am faithful at
my post from one  end of life  to the other, and am responsible for
every type of spontaneous bodily activity, and without my influence
the rest of the composite man is perfectly  helpless.  Consequently
when things are wrong in our family, whatever doctor takes us in
charge would find it to his best interests to take me into his confidence
and make  use of my influence in the family counsels if he hopes to be
successful in the practice of medicine.
   Now, my  dear  friends, I am afraid that I have  been  so  full of
my.own importance that I have dealt  too much in vague generalities
and not confined myself as much as  perhaps I should to  the  plain,
unvarnished  description  of  my anatomy and  physiology.   As  I
think back over  the remarks which I am just completing I do not
remember having told you anything of my plexuses and the nature
of my nerves, how they differ from those  of the cerebro-spinal man,
and I have not mentioned the  fact that I supply the sexual system
and all forms of erectile tissue, and—my! what a theme for  considera-
tion  and  how ignored, neglected,  overlooked, more's  the  pity.
But my time is up, so hands off for to-day.  But I will say right
here that  the opportunity  for addressing you seemed  so  brief,  and
the importance of what I had to say seemed to me  so great, that I
was just too full for utterance, and so probably have  sort of over-
flowed my subject  rather than  attended strictly and  methodically to
106 
business.  I hope I have not done so to such an extent, however, that
I have failed to furnish you with some slight compensation for your
kind presence and attention.
   You may  think from my remarks that the  last of our family of
shapes has been heard from, and  that your next entertainment will
be furnished  by the  composite man himself.   But let  me correct
you.  We have three  more brothers who are yet to be heard  from.
Two of them, our ghostly men, the conscious and the sub-conscious
men, have been referred to, and you perhaps looked for their appear-
ance ; but the third one has not yet been mentioned in your presence,
and  will be the next one to  address  you.   Let me call him  the
organic man.  In him you will meet a shape that will appeal to you
as belonging in part  to the more pronounced physical  forms who
have already  addressed you, and in part deserves to be classed with
our  ghostly brothers.   But I shall offer no further  words of  intro-
duction for our organic brother,  preferring to leave him to do his
own talking.  I would like to say this much, however, that if  he
comes anywhere near doing himself justice, what he has to say will
be well worthy of your attention.  The organic man will be your next
entertainer.
   Asking your pardon for the undue length of my remarks, and
for whatever in them  may have seemed to you vague and indefinite,
and  hoping to have the privilege  of meeting you again  and having
another opportunity to show you  a better consideration and  to  do
better justice to  myself, I  respectfully take leave  of you for  the
present.
107 
 
 
The Liver Man.
Drawn by Frederick II. Williams. 
IMPERSONATION No. 11.
                      the organic man.
Ladies and Gentlemen :
    I am conscious of appearing before you in the guise of a perfect
stranger.   I presume you  did not know that I even existed.   As
you are honest I am sure  you will own  that this is the truth.  But
I really do exist, or I would not be here.  I am sure you  will know
me better after I have told you  my  story, and if you will  kindly
permit me to have your attention for a short time  I  believe  that
I can easily make you  reconciled  to the  conception that there really
exists an organic man,  or, to put it more exactly, a large number of
organic men,  as many organic men  indeed as there  are  organs in
the human  body.  It may seem a little far-fetched to you at  first
to claim  that every organ  in the body is coextensive with the body
itself, and therefore possessed  of  such a perfect human shape as to
entitle it to your consideration as one of the  members of our com-
posite  family.  But such  is really the case.   As you know, there
are a good  many organs in the human  body, and  as every one of
them is a full-grown man in all its perfection  of form the  composite
man, who is supposed to blend all the various  human forms into one
grand  being built in the  image  of  his maker,  and  who is to be
known as  the composite  man, and  who  will  be  the  last of  our
family to address you, is  indeed  a conglomeration of shapes more
numerous than one would  on first thought deem possible. I think
.1 hear you  say at once, "What!  is there a stomach man ? is there
a lung man ? is there a spleen man ? is there a liver man ?  is there a
kidney man? is there a pancreatic man?  and a salivary  man? and a
gJandular man? and every other kind  of man that is represented by
an  integral  bodily organ?"  But do  not  be  uneasy, for although
this is  in reality the case you will  not be called upon to  attend to so
long drawn out a story as  their separate personal reports would of
necessity make,  for as  the  composite man, who is  to be  your  final
entertainer, will  address you in behalf of our  entire family, so  do I
come  before you as a representative of the various  organic  men
109 
who are anxious  to  be heard by  the  same  audience who have
listened to the story  of the various  forms which  have appeared
before you.
   I am not  the composite man,  but  you may if you  like  call me
the composite organic man,  inasmuch as I shall present one com-
mon report for all  the organs, having  myself no real existence out-
side  of the various organic shapes that  enter into my make-up.   1
am not the lung man,  I  am not the heart man, I am not the kidney
man, I am not the spleen man, I am not  the  liver  man, nor any
other of the individual organic men, but  I am all of  these combined
and come before you as  their  sum and substance to tell such a plain
story of the human existence of every one of the organs, even to the
extent of constituting a  complete human form, that each one of th*
various organic men will feel that what I  have to say will do for him.
   Now, many times you know when  description  proves to be
difficult and one's meaning is hard to express in formulated language,
it  is more  satisfactory to both audience and  speaker to speak in
parables; in other words, to explain how things are by means of well
selected illustrations.  My own task appears to  me so difficult that  I
feel almost compelled to  resort to this ancient method of explanation
in order to be at all sure that I can give satisfactory expression to
what I am expected to say to you.  So you will kindly overlook in
my talk what at first may seem irrelevant and wandering, for I think
if  you will put all  my illustrations together, in the end you will be
able  to completely  comprehend my meaning and understand why  I
deem it important  that the organic man should be recognized as  a
composite human  shape and  have equal  privileges  with the other
human shapes, ten of  whom have already addressed  you and some
few  of whom are yet to be heard from.   I realize at once that  the
hardest part of my task will  be to make  it plain to  you that every
organ of the body  is as large  as the body, and  hence possessed of  a
complete human form.  So, if you please, we will give this matter oui
immediate consideration.
   Now will  you  kindly tell  me what is the measure of man? Is
it merely that of a  being so many feet and inches in  height,  of such
and  such girth, of such and  such weight, and  such and such pro-
portions; or does  a man extend as far as his  feelings  influence to
action and  his thoughts give such action form?  It goes  without
saying that whatever issues from a body partakes of  its quality.  In
this way in the great universe of which we are so small a part a sun-
beam tells of the sun and every created thing stands for some quality
                              110 
 in the universal creator, and in our small individual life do we not
 find the same principle universally prevailing? Has not  every being
 his characteristic voice, gait, language, and emanations of all kinds?
 How could a bloodhound track a fleeing fugitive, or a dog  scent
 game, or a detective identify handwriting or footsteps or any  form
 of physical expression upon the part of a human being, if individuality
 was not stamped indelibly upon everything which issued from it ?  A
 school most certainly leaves its stamp upon every scholar who attends
 it; but what is the school but the combined influence of its scholars ?
 The spirit of a town may enter into every one of its inhabitants and
 influence them to enterprise or leisure, to culture or shiftlessness,  to
 drunkenness or sobriety, to any quality that it stands  for; but  what
 is a town other than the sum total of its inhabitants ?  For while the
 quality of the town as a whole unquestionably imprints itself indelibly
 upon every inhabitant  which it contains  there is not an inhabitant
 of any town so insignificant as to escape the responsibility of contrib-
 uting his share, whatever it may be, to the general town quality.  All
 this is but another way of reminding you that while the whole of any-
 thing is invariably made up of its parts, on the other hand the various
 parts enter into  the formation of the whole.  How  could  a  baby-
 boss the whole house if it  was not as big  as the house?  How could
 pepper  and salt and curry and other seasoning and flavoring agents
 be tasted in a teaspoonful of  soup  if they did not permeate every
 particle of it and possess a form coextensive with the liquid itself?
 And yet none of these ingredients in its  solid  form would make
 much of a showing in  comparison with the size  of the bowl whose
 contents  it  so  successfully flavored.  To sight and touch, or  in
 other words, to a part of sense perception, they appear to occupy but
 an insignificant part of  space filled with the broth, but the smell and
 taste, one or both, give evidence of a larger  form, so large inde fd-
 as to be coextensive with the liquid to  which they give flavor.
    I  wonder if  these  brief but pointed  illustrations are not suf-
 ficient to help you understand the  sense in which I present for  your
 consideration as many organic men  as there are bodily organs?  If
 every inhabitant of a town  exercises an influence as wide as the town
 he is in  a sense most certainly as big as the town.  If a scholar wields
 an  influence that permeates the entire school  to which  he belongs
 he is certainly as big as the school.  If an organ wields an influence
coextensive with  the human body  that organ is certainly entitled to
a recognition as a human being, as tall, as broad, as well and com-
 pletely proportioned in  every  part as all the other individual forms
                               111 
whose claim to recognition has no better basis than his own, except
perhaps that his existence appeals  less perfectly to mere sensation,
although just as perfectly to perception.  The real question at issue is
merely this: " Must forms necessarily be sensed ? Are those forms less
real  whose existence can  be established only by perception?   We
measure  air, and  oxygen,  and other gases in cubic feet, the power
of electricity by volts, and why may not other forces enjoy the  same
privilege?  And if  an  organ wields an influence  coextensive  with
the body why may we not allow  it  the privilege of being considered
a bodily shape ?
   Now, my dear friends, the next of  our brotherhood to address
you will  be the brother known as the conscious man, and after him
you  will listen to some remarks by another  of  our shapes known
as the sub-conscious man.  Neither of these two brothers will appear
before  you in  what is known as tangible form.  Their existence  is
not cognizable by any of the physical senses, and yet I think before
they  have done with you that they will convince you most thoroughly
not only of their existence  but  their shapely existence.   If  these
brothers  of ours did not possess organs and have forms not a single
one of the various human forms who  have  already addressed you
could by any possibility of means ever  have taken on human shape.
If these two ghosts of our brotherhood of shapes are to be permitted
to address you in the capacity of human  forms, I  can see no just
reason  why the same privilege should  be denied the organic  man,
for his claim to formship is certainly much easier established than is
that  of either the conscious or  sub-conscious man, because every
organ in the body is possessed of definite  physical attributes amply
sufficient to establish its identity as  an organ, and it is by no means a
difficult task to prove that the influence  of every organ of the body is
coextensive with  the body itself.  If you permit an odor to be con-
sidered as a part of the flower from which it emanates, if you permit
light to belong to a lamp, if you permit sound to belong to a musical
instrument, you must in all reason permit lungs, for instance,  to be
considered as extensive as the influence of the breath, and the kidneys
and liver and spleen and pancreas and all other organs to be as  large
as the  area of the bodily effect  which  is under their control.   The
world is generous in its interpretation of words. It permits  the form
of a word to contain various grades in meaning, ranging everywhere
from the seen to the unseen; indeed there is scarce a word employed
by intelligent beings that has not  a soul as well as a body, that cannot
be used for purposes of communication in the world of thought  as
                               112 
well as in the world of matter, that does not stand for an interior as
well as an exterior form of truth.  Indeed  outer  symbols, words,
and signs, are valuable to us only as they will hold the genuine wine
of life in the shape of some interior meaning which is expected to be
extracted  by all those who drink deep enough to  live.
    But, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that I am trespassing upon the
two ghosts,  the conscious and sub-conscious men, who are so soon to
follow me with  their own impersonations, and I trust  that I have
gone far enough with my illustrations for present  purposes, and that
you will be able to perceive from what I have already said the grounds
upon  which  the various organs of the body base their right to be reg-
istered as human beings.  It may be well, however, before leaving
the subject  entirely to drop generalities,  leaving them for the abler
speakers who  are to follow, and endeavor to make my meaning still
plainer by presenting you  with a single  organic  form,  after which
perhaps it will be a simpler matter for you to understand how every
organ in  the  body  is entitled to recognition as a complete human
shape, for the remarks which I make in behalf of the organic man,
whose airy shape I may try to define for you, will apply  equally well
to all the  other organic shapes who demand recognition  as such.
    Permit me to select the lung man as the organic form, of whose
existence  as a perfect human shape I hope to convince you.  It will
then go without saying that  as there is a lung man there is also a
kidney man, and liver man, and  as many other men as there are
organs.
    Now,  the  lungs, you know, are confined, so far as  their visible
forms are concerned,  to the cavity of  the  chest, having  definite
limited boundaries  so  far  as  appearances go, and  yet  reaching in
their  influence the remotest parts of  the  human  body.   I  am  sure
that you  did not question  the claims of the arterial  man when he
told you of  his fair and  comprehensive proportions.  He permeated
the skin, he went out into the muscles, he penetrated the bones, he
ramified throughout the areolar man everywhere,  and attracted your
attention to  his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, heart, lungs, liver, and vari-
ous other organs through which he  circulated, and in such a com-
plete manner as to take on most perfectly the physical  form of every
organ and tissue in the entire body, so that when he spoke of himself
as the arterial man you must have at once recognized the justice of
his claim. I want to tell you right here that the arterial man never
carried a drop of blood upon which the lungs had not breathed the
breath of life.  The bright red color of the entire arterial stream
113 
was due  to  oxygen supplied almost entirely  by the lungs, a  small
amount only being supplied by the skin man. You must admit there-
fore, without further argument that the lung product at least reached
out into every part of the human body and was coextensive with the
composite man which stands for all  of us.   There is not an organ or
tissue belonging to any of our brotherhood of  shapes that is not de-
pendent for its supply of the vitalizing agent known as oxygen upon
the action of the lungs.  In addition to this the lungs serve as a smoke-
stack out of which the carbonic acid  gas which  results from universal
bodily  decomposition is emitted with every expiration.  If this out-
flow of carbonic acid gas  was stayed but for the space of a few
minutes there is not an organ or tissue of  the body that would not
be strangled to  death.  Every part of the entire  body,  therefore,
which  lives must breathe, that is to say, must receive oxygen and be
able to unload its carbonic acid gas.   And if every organ and' tissue of
the body is not possessed of lungs they certainly act as though they
were, for the interchange of health-giving and  death-dealing gases is
coextensive with every one and all of the bodily forms.  It seems to
me that in reality no further argument is necessary to prove that there
is such a thing as a lung man, with  form and proportion coextensive
with the most perfect of human shapes. But there is another  argu-
ment which may be used if necessary to substantiate the same fact,
and that is the wonderful and universal influence wielded throughout
the bodily domain by the great lung pump, as  the organs of respira-
tion may well be called.  When the diaphragm is lowered and the ribs
are raised and the capacity of the chest is  thereby increased, a large
vacuum is formed which serves as  a suction pump for the entrance
of the air.  But this  statement by  no  means  tells the whole  story.
The influence of this suction is felt not alone upon the volume  of air
but is  appreciated with  equal force  in every branch and twig of the
venous man, whose muscular  coats would be  inadequate to  their
duty of returning the blood from the peripheral tissues to the heart
if they were not aided by the suction power of inspiration.   If you
have never done so, the first chance you get place your finger upon
the anterior fontanelle of a baby in arms and note how it rises and
falls to the action  of  the  lungs.   In inspiration the fontanelle  re-
cedes,  and in expiration it bulges, and this action continues through-
out life,  although after the bones of the skull are perfectlv formed
of course the brain contraction and expansion, which is being kept
up just the same, is not so readily observable.  Now  what you  are
able to note with reference to the baby's brain  by watching the rising
114 
and falling of its anterior fontanelle is equally true of its extremities
and trunk and  all  they contain.   Inspirations pump  blood from the
feet and hands, and skin and bones, and liver and spinal cord, and all
other parts of the body just as they do from the brain ; and expiration
permits them to become  filled up again in readiness  for a repetition
of the  process.   There is no part of the human body so  remote, so
inactive, so dead, as to be insensible to the rhythmic action  of respira-
tion.  Without  it indeed all bodily circulations of liquids and gases
would  speedily cease.  Respiration,  then, is a function coextensive
with the living human form.  When a form ceases breathing it at
the same time ceases living and is dead.  Why, we even speak of the
size of a vacuum,  and inasmuch as the lungs stand not only for the
oxygen supplied by them but also for the vacuum supply of the body,
why must not its just measurement be recognized as being identical
with that of  all the bodily shapes which it so perpetually and  rhyth-
mically exhausts and  fills up? The breath, indeed, stands for the ebb
and  flow of life and all its shades of  quantity and quality, from the
sigh of love to the gasp of fear, from the rapid, panting, and shallow
breath of the excited  to the slow, deep and  regular breathing of the
absent-minded  and reflective.  The hurrying and slowing  of respira-
tion, the shallowness and the depth of it, respond to our various emo-
tional states  so perfectly as to transmit our every temper to the re-
motest recesses of  every type of bodily structure.  As lungs therefore
touch the tissues everywhere not only  by the products of their func-
tion but also by their rhythm, I appeal to you as  an unprejudiced
audience to grant  me the justice of my claim that the true measure-
ment of the lungs in all their dimensions  is identical with  that of
every bodily form  that has appeared before you, or is yet to have that
pleasure.  In a manner less obtrusive, but at the same time as easily
presented and  readily understood, can every organ  of our  common
form claim to  be  coextensive in its sphere of influence with every
other human form, and therefore be  entitled to a hearing in your
presence as one of our brotherhood of  bodily shapes.  There is, then,
not only a lung man but a kidney man, a liver man, a splenic man, a
salivary man, a pancreatic man,  and so on to the end of the chapter.
   My main object in calling your attention to the existence of the
organic man in his multitude of types  is to  perpetuate the important
conception of the oneness  of the human  form divine.   A  healthy
human  being is characterized by the entire absence of all self-con-
sciousness of his various parts, and when an eye, an ear,  a throat, a
lung, a heart, a back, a foot, a hand, a skin, a stomach, or any other
                               115 
tissue or organ makes itself conspicuous  by any type of self-con-
sciousness it is in disorder and needs readjusting to its proper rhythm
in the general harmony of the human organization.  The specialist
that does not recognize in  his work this interdependence of the vari-
ous bodily forms  is  inadequate  to his  calling and unworthy of
patronage.  It is all right for a professional man to confine his atten-
tion to the consideration of the eye, or ear, or nose, or throat, or heart,
or lungs, or kidneys, or sexual system, or any other integral part of
the human body, but in doing so he is in honor bound to constantly
bear in mind the great fact that whereas the part in which he is espe-
cially interested wields an influence coextensive with  the body, at
the same time it is subject to a return influence from the combined
organism of  which it is but a part.
   But  my present purpose is not to cast reflections or to point a
moral, but simply to remind you that as every brick in the construction
of a house is essential to the symmetry and support of the  entire
house, so  every organ in  the human body is essential  to the  entire
body, and therefore coextensive with it in  size and shape. My plea
has been for  the recognition of the existence of the  organic man, or
rather of the organic men, as distinct, full sized, and amply propor-
tioned bodily shapes; and  if you think my position is a strained one
or that my arguments are  weak and far-fetched, I wonder what you
will conclude when you are addressed by that wonderful brother of
ours, the conscious man, who is the next  member of our composite
family to address  you.  The parts which I stand for may not  appeal
to all your senses, but his form would appeal to none  of them, and
yet he is by no means formless or indefinite in his proportions, but  a
veritable human reality, as I hope he may be able to prove to you.
Speaking as one of the coarser types of human  forms well known as
material shapes, I can assure you that in our family counsels the con-
scious man is an  all important member, and none of us  could exist
without him.  But as he is amply able to  speak in his  own behalf  I
will say no more.
   The conscious  man will be your next  entertainer.
116 
 
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The Conscious Man.
Drawn by Frederick H. Williams. 
IMPERSONATION No. 12.
                      the  conscious man.
Ladies and Gentlemen :
    At last I have the pleasure of appearing before you and fulfilling
my promise to entertain you with a brief impersonation, and now that
I have really  undertaken the task I find  that it is by no means  a
simple one and if I do not succeed in making myself plainly.under-
stood you will please be charitable in your criticisms, as in addressing
you I have difficulties to overcome which did not beset those of my
brother shapes who have already spoken to you and which are only
possessed by  one  other  member of our  family,  namely, the sub-
conscious man, who is  to   follow me as  your  entertainer, and
who will probably find himself equally embarrassed when he comes
to make an attempt at an impersonation in  your presence.
    Like my preceding brothers of your acquaintance,  I am indeed
a human form, more perfect than any of them, and yet I am wholly
unable  to demonstrate this  by an appeal  to your physical  senses.
Fortunately, however, I think I can convince you that I do exist as
a human shape, if you will permit me to make use of your reasoning
faculties; and  as logic is said  to be truer than fact, my existence may
impress itself upon you even more forcibly than if I were compelled
to rely  upon  sense perception for proof.   These fellows who have
paraded themselves  before you as  such  consequential shapes,  my
illustrious physical brothers, are all  right as far as  they go.  I have
no  criticisms to make upon  their impersonations,  and yet  without
my remarks and those of my subconscious brother who is to follow,
the composite man, who comprehends us  all, and  who will be the
last to address you, would be but a lifeless piece of clay and wholly
incapable of speaking for himself or anybody else.
    Ladies and Gentlemen: Allow me to inform you that I am the
soul of the cerebro-spinal nervous system, and  through him it  has
been possible for me to infuse  life into the rest of the family.  In-
wardly  I am joined to my subconscious brother, through whom all
the  life for which I stand is filtered, and outwardly I am variously
117 
projected into the physical shapes with all of whom you are now more
or less thoroughly acquainted.  I am the conscious life of the entire
body, and not one of my material brothers is endowed with personal
consciousness and activity  except  by me.  I mean to say that  the
life of the bony man, the muscular  man, the arterial man, the venous
man, the areolar man, and indeed all the physical men, so far as con-
sciousness goes, is mine and mine  alone.  Not one of them can feel
or exhibit  the  slightest  form of  conscious activity except as  my
animating spirit pervades him and enables him to do so.  An eye is
blind, an ear is deaf, a tongue is silent, a nose is  insensible to odors,
a skin is unable to register touch,  except by my conscious  presence
and activity.  All these physical fellows who have spoken to you  are
possessed of  conscious existence through me, and whenever I  move
out of.their shapes I can tell  you it is a dark day for any and  every
one of them.   All their conscious personality, their physical  pride
and manliness,  their existence, indeed, is wiped out, and their forms
are speedily dissipated.  Without me  they are wholly unable to sense
any part of this material world in which  they have taken root and
grown up.   They are thoughtless, will-less, emotionless  and sense-
less, and I leave it to you if  that does not leave them pretty nearly
devoid of physical existence,  as very soon after  my departure from
them, which  is  liable to occur at any moment, they become perfectly
shapeless and cease to exist as human forms, the elements of which
their outward clothing was made being speedily taken up by  lower
forms and made into new garments for succeeding forms of vitality.
    They could not find food with which to build their shapes, or
to keep them in repair,  if it were not for me.  They might be never
so thirsty, but could not make a move to obtain liquids, or recognize
them when they did obtain them, if it were not for me.  They could
not avoid destructive  agencies, or take advantage of  constructive
ones,  if it were not  for me.   They could not take a step, or lift a
hand, or move a voluntary muscle, if I did not furnish them with
motive power.  And, indeed, in every conscious way, they are because
I am.
    You, of course, know that every organ of the body, from muscle
to brain cell, is brought to its development by exercise, but, my dear
friends, please  recognize that it is  I  who accomplish the exercising.
I register all of the impressions received by the various organs of
the body and dominate the body policy. Indeed, I stand for the entire
bodily consciousness, and  without me  there could be  no unity of
118 
action or operation among the various members of our family, and
therefore our family existence would be an impossibility.
   It may be that some of my audience, while recognizing the fact
that  there was such a thing as a conscious man,  have supposed
that  he was  rather a small member of the family and confined to the
nervous centers, and if you wanted to find him you would have to
seek him in  the brain or spinal cord.  But it is my pleasant duty to
disabuse you of that inadequate conception,  and remind you that
every cell of all the  physical men who have addressed you, in  order
to be of any service whatever to the human family of  shapes, must
have within  it the spark of conscious life, and that cell-death is always
followed by cell-burial, cell-funeral and cell-expulsion, for the remains
of every dead cell is swept up by the bodily scavenger  and hurried
on  into one or more of the  four funeral trains  of the body—the
sweat, the breath, the alvine current and the urine—and thus carried
away from  the bodily presence in order  to make room  for vitalized
material.  You will readily understand,  therefore, that if I am the
vitalizing agent for  the entire family of human shapes, you will find
me  present  not only in the  nerve  centers of the brain and  spinal
cord, but also in every part and particle of the living tissues of every
animate human form. Therefore, my shape is coextensive with that
not  only of any one of my brothers, but of all of my  brothers.  I
am in them  all  and permeate them all, infuse life into them all from
center to circumference; and if you have any dealings whatever  with
any of the human forms while they are still connected with a living,
active human being, you will have to  deal with me, for you will find
me anywhere and everywhere throughout the entire human existence
wherever cells are living.
    It will be necessary, my dear friends,  before you go on very far
with any form of scientific studies that are at all practical, for you to
realize that  exterior things imply interior ones; that indeed there is
no such thing  as an outward physical shape that is not  accurately
molded upon an interior shape, which is its indwelling essence and
explanation, and  which must have form in order  to  create form
and sustain form.
    Permit me  an  illustration  which perhaps will serve  to make my
meaning plainer.   Take a house for instance; it is perfectly impos-
sible to build one without first conceiving one.  A foundation could
not be laid without first determining how large, how deep, how broad,
and of what  shape  and  material it  is  to be constructed.   Not a
119 
single part of the superstructure could rise from  its foundations
except as it carried out in minute detail a definite previously formed
conception. A carpenter could not saw a board or drive a nail with-
out the precision of pre-existing intention. A plumber, a stonemason,
a mechanic of any kind would be perfectly helpless unless he was told
what to do and knew how to  do it.  Indeed  a physical construction
of any kind is perfectly impossible except as it is the embodiment
of an unseen mental construction which invariably acts as a causative
factor.  How, then, could  a house ever  take shape with its definite
proportions of walls and rooms, doors and windows, closets and roof,
and  all  the other parts, without in the first place  a  desire for such
construction, and in the second  place a molding intelligence for the
execution of the desire ?
   Every  physical house,  therefore, owes  its existence  to a pre-
existing and definitely shaped  spiritual house, and invariably stands
for what somebody has wanted and what somebody has thought.
   Usher me  into any of the  habitations of men, and by  what they
have done and built and crystallized into physical shape,  I will tell
you how they have felt and what they have thought, and find adequate
explanations for the physical unit.
   There are physical forms, then, simply because there are spiritual
forms to  explain them.  All thought forms  are not by any means
carried out, as by far the great mass of our dreams and  intentions
and  conceptions are wholly unable to  find expression,  but there is
nothing ever carried out and crystallized  into physical shape through
the agency of man that does not stand for a definite purpose  and a
definite  conception welded together into such  definite shape and
intensity of purpose as to explain most completely its existence.  This
linking of the outside of things with the inside, this shaping of the
outward constructions by the inward conceptions and intentions, the
former  of which are but  projections  into the world  of conscious
observation, while the latter belong to the realm of the unsensed,  all
result from the operation of laws which,  while they are manipulated
by man, are laws of the eternal creation which has  the Creator of  all
things for its sun and center.   The temporal homes, then, the play-
houses of men, are constructed after the same fashion in  which the
God-created forms of physical expression are brought  about by the
Creator  himself.  The human  form  divine is likewise  shaped from
within, for standing as it  does  as a result of a God-impulse con-
joined with a  God-thought, the  fact that it has outward  shape and
definite material proportions proves beyond controversy that its un-
120 
seen part, its  inspiration, its soul, its  animating purpose,  was not
formless and indefinite, but equally shapely and well defined in all
the minute details of a well formed concept furnished by an inspir-
ing love running into molds of a well defined and accurately molded
intelligence.
    My friends, you can be well assured that if I  had been  formless
my brother physical  shapes would never have  known how to grow,
nor when  to  stop growing.   Imagine  living matter,  undirected,
undertaking the task of  constructing a human body. The attempt
would certainly be ludicrous,  for all our conceptions of symmetry
and the proper proportions of the well established forms of things
would most certainly be perpetually violated.   If there were legs,
some would be longer than the longest and shorter than the shortest;
arms would be stouter than the strongest and weaker than the weak-
est ; stomachs  larger than the largest and smaller than the smallest;
lungs more capacious than any hitherto known and others forgotten
in the make-up.  With no definite mold to be cast about there would
be  bigger heads than ever have  been known and smaller ones than
could be conceived of; human ears longer than mules' and shorter
than apes'; mouths like a whale's and  sometimes no mouths  at all,
and squint would be commoner  than now.  Even as it is there are
the coccyx and appendix and a few other hints of shapes as they used
to be, but these are scarcely worthy of mention in comparison with
the anomalies  and eccentricities  of shape  that  would characterize
every part of  the human construction if there were  not an interior
mold of definite shape and proportion about which to nicely wrap the
physical clothings of time.
    I am not saying that I stand for the interior, unseen human form
that is responsible for the human type.  You  must  hear   what
my  subconscious brother  has  to  say on the subject.  I  sim-
ply stand before you as the conscious  man that wills and thinks,
and senses and remembers, and that acts in reality as a  go-between
between my inspirational brother, who is life itself, and the outside
clay which I wrap about me for  my purposes of life.
    Not an eye which belongs to any  one  of my physical  brothers
can see a thing; I do the seeing.  Not an ear of our material  brother-
hood can register a single sound; I do the registering. Not an odor
is recognized by any of the physical noses; the sense of smell belongs
to  me; I alone am the conscious smeller.  When doctors prescribe,
their drugs are right up to me.  Not a  sensation of any kind can be
taken into account by any one of my physical brothers who have been
121 
permitted to present you with their impersonations; all that function
is peculiarly my own.  Because I feel, and because I think, they are
what they  are.  I pay my allegiance to my subconscious brother,
through whom comes  my inspiration, but I claim  dominion over all
the human forms that stalk the  earth and pitch their tents  on the
shores of time.  As my business is to look out into the world through
the organs of self-consciousness and  take in the  appearances of
passing events, I am prone to be  moved by them, and am  frequently
possessed of impressions and notions  which I am compelled to re-
peatedly correct and modify as my subconscious brother initiates me
deeper and deeper into the realm of realities.   I submit for his con-
sideration the great multitude of  facts  which my powers of observa-
tion are constantly accumulating,  and look to him for guidance when
I come to  unraveling the deeper  meanings of things as they are
spelled out by the passing panorama of my varied earthly experiences.
With my senses all reaching out into the material world, and  my in-
spiration furnished by my subconscious brother, I stand before you
as the  most perfect human shape that you have yet met, the  Con-
scious Person, the I Am, and  sincerely hope that I  have  impressed
you with the  fact that while all my brothers are possessed of the
forms of ears, mine are the ears; while they all have the forms of
eyes, my eyes are the ones that  see; while they have displayed  all
the bodily organs before your conscious  observation as proof of the
fact that they are possessed  of bodily organs so far as heard from,
my organs are the organs of organs, and my form the form of forms.
You have never sensed electricity; you have  simply observed  some
of the physical phenomena  of its  outward expression.   You  have
never sensed gravity,  but you know what it does.  You have never
been able to perceive  by your physical senses  a thought, and  yet I
am sure you are satisfied that thought forms exist and are responsi-
ble for the  outward shapes which we are able to detect by sense per-
ception.  In just  the  same way,  perhaps, you will be able to realize
that my  organs, although they cannot be demonstrated  by  instru-
ments  of dissection,  by the microscope or by chemicals, neverthe-
less have definite shapes and are in reality the organs of  the human
body, and that my form is the form around which all the others are
molded and from which they take their shapes.  I have made my
brother shapes, and by what they are you can judge of what I am.
   In some mysterious manner at the close of every day my faculties
seem  folded and  my  proud  consciousness is laid to rest.   After all
my days are done and the physical shapes of my brother men, which
122 
my thought and will have perpetually animated and kept in conscious
existence, are no longer a fit habitation for my indwelling, and so
must  respectively  return  to  the elements out  of  which they were
constructed, my existence so  far as this world is concerned seems to
all appearances to have reached a sleep so deep that it does not waken
in this world with the dawning of  succeeding days.   Whether or not
my form, too, disintegrates after the manner of my brother physical
shapes whose impersonations have already been presented  to you is
not a question for the present occasion.  My present purpose  is ac-
complished when I have presented to you the fact that  so far as  you
have yet heard from our family  I  am the conscious life of them all.
My shape is that of the human form divine,  and is more  perfect in
all its proportions and details  of construction than any of my brothers
who have addressed you, and I recognize no superior in  shape or
function in  our  united  brotherhood  of human forms except in the
person of my subconscious brother, who will act as your next imper-
sonator.  He will perhaps take a  little  of the wind out of my sails
and prick my bump of conceit until it collapses.  Nevertheless, being
older and more influential than my predecessors upon this  platform,
y/ou will perhaps pardon me for the apparently self-assertive tone and
consequential bearing of my remarks on the present occasion.
   I hope you are not more interested in a noise than you are in what
makes the noise,  in a picture than in the painter, in a  form than in
the thing, in the material shapes  of my brother forms than in the
inspiring, although unsensed, organization which explains their ex-
istence.  I sincerely hope you are too  sensible  to be more taken up
with the husks of things than you are with the kernel. Let under-
takers care  for the dead  bodies.  What you  want to know about,
although possibly you have not realized it before, is  the real person,
and so far as heard from  I am that person.   I have  nothing against
my brother shapes.  I made them.  I am proud of them.  I have no
disposition to belittle them  or to make light  of  their importance.
They have been faithful servants to me during my journey through
time; but they do not live always,  and, between you and me, I think
that I do.
   After my subconscious brother has presented  you  with his  im-
personation you may think that I have gone a little too far in claiming
responsibility for the shaping of the various members of our family;
but there is  one  direction in which I cannot claim too much,  and
that is, that  I am in reality the brains of the family,  and as such am
the sole director  of whatever sentiments prevail in our family.  I
123 
settle its  politics, its religion, dictate its  line of education,  foster
all its hopes and fears.  Of course, this makes me also responsible
for its mistakes and shortcomings, and if  the love of power,  which
is my great temptation, was at all inclined to make me conceited, my
repeated errors of judgment would make me  stand  corrected.  I
know that I fill our whole family with terror and put  them on the
run when there is nothing to be afraid of, and I ought to make them
stand their ground.  I know  that I frequently  paralyze them with
hesitation  and  doubt and skepticism when I  ought to  imbue  them
with courage and hope and trust.   I know that I am too frequently
moved by  what they tell me of the outside appearances of things,
when my  inner ear, if it  were only open as it ought to be to the in-
spirational whisperings  of my subconscious  brother,  would  teach
me better.
    Sometimes  I  am  foolish enough to conceive myself a  God in-
stead of realizing that I  am but a child of God,  for whom  there is
but one appropriate attitude—that of teachableness.
    By  my influence  over the  respiration and circulation I  can
dominate  to a  great  extent all the bodily  functions, and if I  were
only wise enough I would always  act as their protector, preserver
and defender.  But in my moments of shortsightedness and con-
ceit I commit such grievous  errors that I  much fear that by good
rights I should be held responsible for many of the types of chronic
disease and for the premature decay and death of our entire family
which is so common as to be almost universal.
    I am well aware that  the medical profession as a whole does not
indorse  these sentiments and  will  attribute  this confession  to  a
morbid  self-consciousness.  But they have been so busy with  their
chemicals,  their microscopes and dissecting knives and physical ap-
pliances and measures of various  kinds,  that  they are  still  too
materialistic  in their propensities  to have  gone very far  in  their
appreciation  of the ultimate causes  of the  great issues of  life and
death; and if they were inclined to listen to some of the confessions
I  might make, and which perhaps I may make on  some future
occasion, they might  learn something  to their advantage as to the
etiology of disease,  and increase their appreciation of the part which
interior  forces play  in the history of their material projections.  But
medical  men are  still very busy with their physical science and do
not seem quite ready yet to be initiated into  the deeper and more
advanced studies  of their art.   Doctors are good fellows, and will
get on in  time, and you  people must be a little patient with  them.
124 
The better they do their kindergarten work the more thorough will
they be with their higher studies when they come to them.  In the
meantime I shall go right on doing the best I can with the aches
and pains into which by my poor  philosophy  and  bad judgment I
repeatedly plunge my fellow shapes of the material  sphere, thanking
the material doctors  for their help  in covering up the errors of my
ways, and praying for guidance into such right  living that my family
in time will not be called upon to suffer physical disease as the result
of my ignorance and indiscretion. It is easy on me when an unknown
fellow called  disease gets blamed for what  I do.  I don't believe I
am quite as conceited as I used to  be, and as I get older I am  con-
scious of paying better heed to the interior promptings which reach
me from my subconscious brother.  He needs me as the only avenue
by which he can reach our  family  of material  shapes. This  he has
always known.  I need him as the source from  which I draw all my
inspiration and life, and at last I am beginning  to find it out.  If the
time ever comes  when my inner subconscious brother and  myself
work harmoniously the suffering for the rest of the  family will come
to an  end.
   Thank you for your kind consideration and attention.  There is
much more I would  like to say to  you, but enough for the present.
You will hear my subconscious brother next, and as he is really the
fountain-head of our family, I know you will give him a  hearty wel-
come.  Good-by.
125 
 
 
The Subconscious Man,
Drawn by Frederick H. Williams. 
IMPERSONATION  No. 13.
                    the sub conscious man.
Ladies and Gentlemen ;
  I sincerely hope  that the impersonation  of my brother,  the con-
scious man, was satisfactory to you, and that he succeeded in making
it clear to your comprehension that although himself completely hid-
den from all sense-perception, nevertheless his is  the personality that
is really responsible for every possible activity of all the senses, and
he is possessed of a human shape and is thoroughly entitled to mem-
bership in  the family  of shapes which go to make up  the composite
man.   For if  he, with all his self-assertive consciousness, was not
able to impress you with his personality there will be small prospect
of my posing  before you  successfully as a human form, for I  am a
much ghostlier ghost than he  is.
   Why, he can  see,  and hear,  and taste, and smell,  and feel, and
in this way make himself aware of the passing panorama of events
in the physical world; but these  privileges are denied  me,  and I
know nothing  of the outside world except  as he tells me  of it.  I
have  some knowledge  of interior things  of which  my  conscious
brother knows nothing,  except  as  he is made  aware of it by the
fact  that the composite man, in which he is such a  leading spirit,
confronts him very many times with a rival influence  in the way of
various interior impressions, wants, and desires which have to be set-
tled with before united and harmonious action can be secured by our
family of shapes in any direction whatever.
   My conscious brother is rather inclined to be pretty loud-mouthed
and opinionated in  his views of  things, but  in spite of this the still,
small voice that expresses my views  from time  to time,  and  often-
times in his unwilling ears, is not without its influence, and things
are pretty  likely to  go my way in  the long run  when  it comes to a
matter of rivalry between us.  He does a good deal of sputtering and.
declaiming, and is full of self-assertion and braggadocio, but when
it comes time to act he very frequently cools down and takes my ad-
vice rather than his own.
127 
   My conscious brother is the soul,  or  life-principle, which  ani-
mates what is known as the cerebro-spinal  man, whose nerve centers
are in the brain and spinal cord, and whose nerve trunks extend from
these centers to every part of the body.  You have already listened to
the impersonation of the cerebro-spinal man.   He,  my  conscious
brother, is all the time occupied with what I should call the outside
world.  His eyes are busy all  day  long, from morning till night, in
looking into the faces of people and things and trying to figure  out
what meaning they stand for, and attempting to decipher, in fact, all
the signs of the times as they file before him in one  ceaseless, rapidly
moving panorama,  and the  things  that he don't  see  personally he
endeavors to read about and  imagine; but he is just as busy with his
ears, and while his  eyes are doing their best to comprehend every-
thing  which comes  within their focus  of  observation, his ears  are
equally concerned with the sound waves of time.
   If it is true, as Elmer Gates says, that the constant employment
of a faculty, and especially in tests of increasing difficulty, insures a
corresponding development  of brain cells, what a bunch of brain
cells my conscious brother must  have the  privilege of roaming
around in in that part of the brain which registers sight waves and
sound waves.  There  is a whole world  full of things to look at,  but
just about as big a  world full  of things to listen to.  Almost every-
thing  which approaches one comes  with a noise of some kind.  Even
angels are said to approach  with a rustle  of wings that can be  de-
tected by sensitive ears. The vibrations of  air that  strike the tympa-
num are infinite in number and variety. Some are buzzing, some are
whizzing, some are rumbling, while others are roaring,  shouting,
screaming, whispering, singing, rasping, soothing; and dear knows
to what length a vocabulary  would have to go to express the variety
of sounds that the ear is expected to give heed to.
   But while sight and sound demand a great  deal of my  con-
scious brother's attention, he seems to  have some  time to spare for
the contemplation of things  which  he smells and tastes.  Any well-
educated man has obtained  a  great deal of his knowledge through
these  two faculties.  Congenial tastes  and smells  are quite  dear to
his heart.  In fact a man is  quite frequently held in bondage by his
nose when his freedom would be easily  acquired if he were  but
deprived of the sense  of smell.  And the same  is true of his palate.
There is no keener  chase in the race of physical life than that which
men undergo for the  flavors which delight their palates.  And the
reverse of these statements  is also true.   While pleasant odors can
128 
stir into activity emotions which thrill the entire being with delight,
disagreeable odors are equally capable of arousing feelings of repul-
sion, terror, and  other forms of  discomfort and  distress, while the
sensations of taste enjoy a like privilege.  They can gratify and de-
light, or they  can engender repugnance  and kindred  unwelcome
emotions.  The part which odors and flavors play in our personal his-
tory is  by  no means  sufficiently  appreciated,  but  as this is not the
proper  time  to  give  the subject  further consideration, I must  be
satisfied for the  present with merely  calling  your attention to this
much neglected field of inquiry, and proceed with my theme.
    Even more than taste and smell,  perhaps, and almost equal to
the senses of sight and sound, is  that of touch.  The blind and deaf
can still feel their way, and the story  of life as told by the sense of
touch, if well written, would be a most fascinating history of physical
sensation.
    Now, although each  one  of these  faculties requires constant at-
tention, yet my brother,  the conscious man, manages them all, takes
cognizance of all the  reports which they bring him, takes them into
consideration, decides what disposition to make of them, and then exe-
cutes his orders accordingly.   If he finds things to his liking, he per-
suades  the whole composite  man to  settle down and  stay there as
long as possible,  this  for the time being is his home.
    Perhaps it has never occurred to you just what home is, but is
it not merely a place of congeniality and of rest which comes from a
sense of peace,  happiness, and serenity?  When  the eye is  so de-
lighted  with its prospect that it  loves to dwell upon it,  the ear so
pleased with the harmony of sounds  about it that it loves to  con-
tinue to listen, when the odors are delightfully  fragrant, and the  taste
and  sense  of  touch are likewise  satisfied;  when  all these various
physical gratifications  are experienced in the  same place and at the
same time, genuine home life is  attained so far as it is possible in
this  earthly camping-ground.  It is  here  that our satisfied  spirits
label everything in its environment the endearing  name of "home."
It is the home; everything looks  like home, tastes like home, smells
like  home, feels  like  home,  and  has  the  home table,  all together
making a home  symphony the memory of whose music gladdens
many a weary hour after the home is broken  up and the wanderer
becomes  footsore and oftentimes  discouraged in his  search for
another combination of physical delights sufficiently restful and satis-
fying to entitle it  to wear the  "home" door-plate.
   Dissatisfaction and  unrest can  speedily  annihilate  the home
                              129 
 sensation and sentiment.  As soon as an individual becomes dissatis-
 fied with the reports which his senses bring him, something in the
 landscape offends him, something in the world of sound annoys him,
 something smells bad, or tastes bad,  or feels bad, he picks  up his
 belongings and  moves on  until congenial surroundings are  again
 encountered, and his physical  wanderings never cease until he is
 unable to go farther or he  once more is ushered  into a harmony of
 sensations.
    Realizing this to be so, every man  is perpetually striving to build
 up an earthly home life as perfect as possible, so that he may at least
 enjoy  physical comfort  for the  present;  and oftentimes  he  gets
 together such a happy combination of sense-producing agencies that
 his home is made so attractive that if he could have his way it would
 become his permanent abiding-place.   But fortunately for his own
 good, his coming and going upon this material  plane is  out of his
 keeping, and all he can do is to make the best of whatever  time is
 allowed him  for his earthly stay,  and he is not even told how long
 that will be.
    I mention all these things to show you to what  an extent  my
 brother is employed in taking mere physical observations and manag-
 ing physical matters.  You  see in order to run a consistent career he
 has to remember all the impressions  he receives from the  outside
 world and put them together so as to make a consistent story of  life
 out of them; and he has not only to remember everything he senses,
 but to think it over, Weigh  it in the balance of his judgment,  decide
 how much attention to give it, and act accordingly.  In other words,
 he is perpetually ruminating upon the appearance of things and busy-
 ing himself with the spectacular.
    When all his faculties fail him, however, as they do in time, his
 eyes grow dim and  his ears dull, and  his other senses more  or less
 blase, he then begins in dead earnestness to seize  hold of the deeper
 problems of life with whose forms of activity he has  been so much
 taken up. He is then to me  more companionable.  You see of myself I
 can neither see, hear, taste, smell, nor feel.  I have no physical senses
 apart from my conscious brother, and I enjoy  his companionship
 much more when he turns his observation inward  and concerns him-
 self with matters of the inner world rather than with their physical
 projections into the world of time.
    I hope you remember  somewhat  of the impersonation  of  my
brother, the sympathetic man, for, as he has told you, I am the animat-
 ing spirit of  his construction; and as he is the  great  body-builder,
                              130 
 having furnished  the emotions  under which our entire family  has
 been put into form, you can understand by what right I pose before
 you as the human form of forms.  All the rest of the family are be-
 cause I am.  Even my conscious brother, who claims superiority to his
 fellow-shapes because he bosses them around a little and makes  use
 of them, is a subject of my own creation.
    If you want to name me, you can call me the universal I W'ant.  If
 that does not satisfy you, call me love; or you may call me the book
 of life.  If you want another name, you may know me as the soul.
 If still you are not satisfied, you may consider me  as the life-prin-
 ciple.  In order to establish my claim to kinship with  the other human
 forms, I suppose I must go one step farther and suggest that as I am
 the life of the  sympathetic man, whose existence as a human shape
 has already been sufficiently well established,  and as there  is no part
 of him which  is not  alive, the  conclusion is very  evident that  his
 shape and  mine are identical.  There is no part of  the  sympathetic
 nerve which is  not animated by my own principle of  vitality.  Indeed
 he is but a cup of life, while I am the life, though I can assure you his
 cup is full, and he would not be good for much if it were not. So, if
 you are able to conceive the shape of the sympathetic man, you can
 regard this form as identical with my own. This is  in reality a very-
 modest claim on my part,  and does not quite do justice to myself,
 for in reality the sympathetic man does not contain all there is of  me
 by any means,  for I am not only in him, but all around him, and he
 is not by any means capable of containing my full self.  But this sub-
 ject of aura, or over-soul, which is trying to obtrude itself, had better
 be omitted in the present connection, all the point which I desire to
 make being that you will make no mistake in  recognizing that I, the
 subconscious man, have definite proportions and shapely  outlines en-
 titling me to a just claim to membership in the family  of shapes that
 go to make up the composite man.   I  am certainly  the innermost
 shape of our family, for there is not one of them who is not a mere
 embodiment of  some ideal of mine.
   Let that suggest to you that I am  the idealist of the  family, and
 what  they  are  and do  is  simply a carrying-out  of  conceptions
that proceed  from  myself.  Our family has never felt  a want whose
source  was not  myself, and it has never had an impulse that did not
spring from me.  It is from me that all the rest have sprung into be-
 ing and served  their time; and right here I want to call  your  atten-
tion to the  fact that I have not done my conscious brother full justice
in accusing him of being unduly enamored of the  sights, and sounds,
131 
and smells, and flavors, and sensations of this world, for throughout
the collection of sense-producing subjects there is always  a choice.
One cannot see the light and the dark, nor  hear the harmonies and
the discords, nor smell the agreeable and the disagreeable,  nor taste
the pleasant and disgusting, nor feel  the agreeable and the painful,
in other words, give attention  to opposites, at the same time; and
as there is always both classes of sensations  in existence, my brother
always has a choice as to whether he will choose order or confusion,
whether the things that lead to happiness or the things that lead to
unhappiness, and as I supply him  with the never-ending  I Want,
which is his sole stimulus of action, I  really  suppose I am personally
responsible for the  direction of his  faculties, for his choice of  what
class of sensations he is to give heed to, register in his memory, and
to permit to influence his activity.
   There is a seeming inconsistency, however, in making this confes-
sion which will have to be explained.  My own ideals of life are high.
I love the truth, I  love the beautiful, I love virtue, I love honesty, I
love God and my neighbor and all that that involves; indeed I am of
God and in reality godlike; and  yet when the actions of my conscious
brother are thoroughly analyzed I  find that he  is often  accused,
and not wrongfully, of acting directly opposite to these conceptions.
He is frequently tempted  to lie, to steal, to be otherwise than virtuous,
to hate instead of love, and in many ways to pervert my good inten-
tions.  Now, I do not like to find fault with any of the members of
our happy family, and at the same time,  being responsible for the
course  of life led by my conscious brother, and through his agency of
the entire family of forms, I feel that the blame for the miscarrying
of my  intentions should fall in  the  right place, and it does not rest
with me.  Therefore, in  order to clear my own reputation and  that
of the other innocent members of the family, it is necessary  for me to
carefully explain  how  it  is  that with the  best  of  intentions on my
part, and that too while I am responsible for the entire motive power
of the  body, the family seem to be  frequently guided by wrong im-
pulses, appetites and desires, to such an extent that the  composite
man is  often said to be a great sinner, when in reality some one of our
shapes  is merely' in an unfit condition for business.  And what one of
these shapes do you think it is  that is responsible  for the  deviations
of life ? What one  of our members  do you think ought to be blamed
for the impulses to cheat, to lie and to  steal, and to hate, and  to do
other wrong things which hurt  the reputation of the family and fre-
quently visit upon us serious mischief  of all kinds ?
132 
    Please remember that my ideals are always straight and true and
 commendable, and the impulses which I furnish to the sympathetic
 man are as clean as the water which bubbles from a spring, or as
 the light which emanates from  the sun.
    I  am  very careful  about the  purity  of  the  life-flow which I
 sent  to my sympathetic brother,  but  oftentimes  after it passes
 through me and  into the other shapes, it does not appear  like the
 same message which I  issued  to the family.  I find that even the
 nutrition which he has to accomplish  for all our family is many times
 poorly  done, and that sometimes one member of  the family suffers
 and sometimes others.  I have known the bony man to develop tumors
 and inflammations and  all sorts of troubles.  I have known the skin
 man, and all the others of them,to grieve and get sick,each in his own
 peculiar way, and of course  it is always  the fault of the sympathetic
 man, as he is the family provider;  and as I am the spirit which ani-
 mates the sympathetic man, the trouble, by those who look far enough,
 is usually laid at my door, so  that the monuments of pathology erected
 in various parts of the  human  body  to sympathetic mistakes or in-
 adequacy are usually interpreted by the  more enlightened of human
 diagnosticians as telltale evidence of a sinful life on my part.  I  have
 been thinking  wrong  or  feeling  wrong, and consequently living
 wrong,  and hence have visited disease  upon my  family  instead of
 keeping them in a healthy state.   I have suffered keenly from  this in-
 justice,  for  I have  always been conscious of the  cleanliness of my
 motives at all times and in all places, and I have long since  wanted
 an opportunity to explain why it was that the composite man was
 troubled with  so many  wrong and wicked tendencies, moved by so
 manyr unhappy and  unworthy emotions,  entertaining so many incor-
 rect, illogical and badly distorted thoughts, and as a consequence why
 chronic  sickness for  the whole  family was so universally prevalent;
 and here at last is my  opportunity to explain, and I want  you to
 know right  now that the trouble lies, not with myself, or with any
 any other member of the family other than my sympathetic brother,
 who is  my  particular physical  embodiment.
   It may seem to  you a little cruel and uncalled-for for me,  a
member of our happy family, to stand here and  claim that  all the
chronic  illness which is visited upon any and all the various members
 of our composite shape is to be laid at the door of one of our num-
ber ; and if this is so, why has  he not been found  out long ago and
held responsible for the  mischief which he has  done ?
   As to this  last point, why  this great  truth has not been com-
133 
monly known  for ages past, that is easy enough to explain, because
doctors have been in the habit of basing their diagnoses  to a great
extent upon the testimony of the consciousness of their patients, and
the patients are  seldom conscious of the changes which  have been
wrought in their body by their subconscious part, and  there  has,
therefore, been a universal tendency to simply deal with effects in
a  superficial manner,  whereas the real causes of illness have re-
mained untouched,  undiscovered, and still  in  operation.
   And then,  too, doctors have not done enough thinking for them-
selves, but have been too menial in  their deference to so-called au-
thority.  If you will chase this word "authority" down, I think you '
will find it would mostly be understood to mean a man who has occu-
pied some  public position or has  written a big book, either one or
both of these being enough in the  minds of the average members of
the medical profession to  constitute him an authority upon the sub-
jects upon which he treated, just as though books did not  have to be
rewritten and  the mistakes of professors repeatedly corrected.   But
doctors have been illogical, and hence have not gone as far in  their
medical discoveries  as they would have done if their brains had been
freer  or better trained.
   I mean by that  simply this,  and I tell  it to them right  in  their
faces, and they can  talk back if they want to, but my advice to them
is  to open their ears and keep their mouths closed, and see if what I
am saying does not sink into their consciousness and awaken them
to the truth of my accusations; there is  not a  medical college on the
face of the  earth that  does not tell all  about  the voluntary muscles
and  the involuntary muscles, and how the  voluntary  muscles are
supplied by the cerebro-spinal nervous  system, and how  the invol-
untary muscles are supplied by the sympathetic nerve.  They  describe
very accurately  the location  of the involuntary  muscles; they say
that the involuntary muscles are  found  in the muscular coats of all
the tubes of the body, surrounding the  sweat and sebaceous glands,
the entire alimentary  canal from the mouth to the anus,  and all its
branches, including the salivary ducts, the ductus communis  choledo-
chus, pancreatic duct, and the various glands that are found along the
entire  length  of the intestine; surrounding  the  bronchial  tubes to
their minutest ramification, surrounding the tubes of the itrinary ap-
paratus, the sexual  apparatus, and supplying a coat for  all the blood
vessels and  lymphatics. In other words, the involuntary  muscles of
the body have under their control the entire nutrition of the whole
composite man.   It is through  their  action that all  supplies are
                               134 
brought and all waste carried away.  It is said that all disease begins
in blood stasis, or congestion, and it is weakness of the involuntary
muscles that permits congestion to take place.
    Xow, this far  doctors have gone,  and everybody that is posted
in medicine is perfectly familiar with these facts as stated.   They
also acknowledge when questioned, and seem  to partially  realize,
that the sympathetic man is the one who furnishes the steam which
runs the entire machinery of involuntary muscles.   In  other words,
the nutrition and  repair of the  entire body really depend upon the
sympathetic nerve which feeds and supplies all the involuntary mus-
cles.  Where they are illogical is right here; they have not gone any
further than  to admit  these facts.  They are not hunting  for the
waste and  repair of the sympathetic nerve.  Having the keys to the
medical kingdom  in their possession,  they do not seem to have the
sense to turn them and unlock the gate and look within. They know
that sympathetic forces dominate and control the peristaltic action of
the entire body, and that means the organic life of the body, the func-
tions of the body, and all forms of bodily activity, and yet they do not
go the important further step of looking to the waste and repair of the
sympathetic nerve as the essential element to success in their efforts
to either maintain or restore the equilibrium of life, which we know as
health.
    Here is where they are  illogical  and stupid to an extent that
makes me out of patience with them. You see they admit that all our
nutrition depends  upon the sympathetic nerve, and consequently that
all repairs  of bodily waste must come  through  the same stimulating
force, and  yet they neglect to take the sympathetic nerve force into
consideration  when they come to treat the case.  The sympathetic
nerve fibers may be impinged and spending the vitality of the sympa-
thetic nervous system in a most reckless and prodigal manner, but the
fact will entirely'  escape their  notice, for  they do not seem to know
enough  to  hunt  for excuses of sympathetic nerve waste in cases of
lowered vitality.  They simply hunt for weak spots in the body gen-
erally, and  ignore entirely the first cause of the weak spots.
    But  if I keep on expressing my feelings on this subject I shall get
so warmed up that I shall forget to stop. And then, too, it is  more
or less of a digression and does not properly belong to this impersona-
tion, so that although I would like to say more upon this subject, I do
not feel at  liberty to do so on the present occasion.  You see  these
impersonations are not  undertaken in  the interest of any theory of
health or disease, and no advantage of your attention is going  to be
135 
taken to demonstrate to you the important relationship between pelvic
troubles and  bodily vigor or reactive power;  but I really wish to
insist at this point that you stir up doctors to a realization of the fact
that we do live by the sympathetic nerve, and that the first step to take
in the cure of the sick is to know what constitutes  sympathetic nerve
waste; in the next place to know where  this takes place; and in the
next place to stop the  waste, securing freedom of  the nerve fibers
from undue impingement and irritation; and in  the last place to em-
ploy as curative measures such agencies  as will restore sympathetic
nerve power  in  order that the  machinery of the  body may have a
sufficient supply of its own native steam with which to accomplish its
purposes.
    Here I am again wandering from my  subject.   It was a good dose
for you, however, and I do not regret it at all;  but you must forgive
me if I have seemed to digress, and come back with  me now to
the reason why it is necessary to  throw the whole blame of  what
goes  wrong in  our  composite family upon our sympathetic brother.
    I  am particularly anxious to have  his condition  looked into, be-
cause he does not carry out the intentions which I  pour into him true
to my meaning; I mean good, and he makes me mean harm; I mean
virtue, and he spurs the body into vice ; I mean that our family should
be  truth-guided, and I send truthful messages, and he  distorts my
meaning into lies and urges our family into bypaths of mischief of all
kinds; I mean honesty, and he interprets my message to our family
to mean dishonesty, and so on to the  end of the  chapter.  In  other
words, he seems to hear crooked.  I talk  as straight as I can and try
to make my meaning plain.  I understand what God and his angels
want of me, and see my duty plain, and do it in a  conscientious man-
ner ; but if you will sift the evidence carefully you will see that right in
my sympathetic brother is where the transfer from light to darkness
takes place, and here is where the mistakes of life are made.
    Perhaps you will understand from his own impersonation how it is
that he gets all tangled up and makes a  lie out of the truth so  many
times.  At any rate, I have not the liberty on the  present occasion to
take  you into a detailed account of how  it happens that  my sympa-
thetic brother ofttimes  proves to be so imperfect an interpreter of life
 from me to the forms which I have created, so as  frequently to guide
them into directions which I am horror-stricken at their having taken.
Now, mind you, I don't accuse my  sympathetic brother of  being
 dishonest or dishonorable, or doing anything out of the way which
 he can help.  I simply say that ofttimes  he  does his  work poorly, and
                               136 
that when as a matter of observation it turns out that  our family
of shapes goes wrong, either individually or as a whole, taking the
road to sickness and disease and death instead of keeping the straight
and narrow path that leads to life and health eternal, we find that the
forces which guided to the mischief had their beginnings in my sym-
pathetic brother.
    To many of you this rather severe calling to task  of my sympa-
thetic brother may  seem not only uncalled-for, but rather unfeeling.
for the simple reason that my sympathetic brother in his own imper-
sonation confessed  his fault and  appealed to the medical profession
to relieve his terminal fibers of embarrassment in order that  he might
be able to supply all the various organs of the body with their-peculiar
rhythm and in  sufficient  force to enable them to do  their work as
organs, well and conscientiously.  In other words,  he has  said that
sometimes he was inadequate to  his task and wanted help.   I have
simply  to say that there are those in the audience who did not hear
my brother speak, and I owe  something to them.  And in the next
place,  my brother,  like the rest of the family,  is my. own  creation,
and when I find fault with him I am simply finding  fault  with  my
own work, and  I feel that it is  my privilege to do so to any extent I
choose.   I know as well as you do that it  is not right  to be too hard
on one's  self.   At  the same  time it must become a matter of  uni-
versal knowledge just where  in our  family lies the mischief which
permits so many of the human  species to drag on in sickness, where-
as they are created for the enjoyment of health during their earth life.
    Now,  if you doctors will  take warning from the remarks of  my
sympathetic brother and myself, and see to it that there is no undue
waste of sympathetic nerve force,  and that no form of nerve  impinge-
ment is permitted to vibrate any of the organs out of their accustomed
rhythm, I think you will find  yourself in possession  of  the key to
earthly happiness for mankind, for I  can assure you that every one
of the human shapes is built  on the models  which I have furnished
to our  family, and the models are all right.    All that  is necessary to
be  done to secure  a perfect  composite man is that these models
shall be accurately projected  into  physical shape.
    But, my clear friends, I find myself at the end of the space allotted
for my impersonation,  and I must take my leave of you.  You need
not tell me that you are disappointed in my remarks.   I  can assure
you that your disappointment  cannot by any means equal my own;
and yet, in  justice  to myself, I must  confess to  you that  the task
which I have undertaken  has  been no easy  one, although  it would
137 
have been better performed had more adequate space  been  granted
me.
   I should like to institute a series of comparisons for your benefit
between myself and my conscious brother, between our mental and
emotional parts, our judgment, and various individual characteristics.
He makes suggestions to me,  and sometimes I take them and some-
times I don't, and I wish I had time to explain to you why  I don't
take in dead  earnest everything he says.  But  of course you have
heard about some people talking through their hats, to use a common
phrase, and I am sure from this expression you can guess something
that will  not be far from the  truth.   He at times talks a good deal
without saying much, and any suggestion of his that does not come
from his  heaft and is insincere and not in dead earnest  fails to touch
me.  Why, do you know that if I adopted all that fellow's fancies, he
is  so full of fear that he would visit all  sorts of mischief upon our
family a dozen times a day if he were permitted to do so. Sometimes
he thinks we all have consumption; sometimes he thinks we have can-
cer ; sometimes he thinks we have typhoid fever;  sometimes he thinks
we are going to die in a  short time.  Indeed, he is frequently fancying
all sorts of things, and yet not always distressing ones. Sometimes in-
stead of being pessimistic he is optimistic, and then his dreams are of
the other kind.  He gets too gay, too hopeful, too sure  that what he
hopes for will come to pass. He thinks our family is stronger than it
is, can accomplish  mere than it can, and presumes on its strength,
so that I  have to call him down.  You can see very quickly why it is
that whereas  I  am open to suggestions from him it would  be per-
fect  folly for me in my everyday, steady job of body-building, if  I
should be compelled to'listen to everything he  talks into my ears.
He does enough mischief with our family as it is with his wayward-
ness, and if his influence were still greater I am afraid it would be
harder on the family.
   On the other hand,  supposing my impulses and desires were not
submitted to his judgment.  I have just told you that  owing to im-
perfections in  our sympathetic brother,  as  they   are  voiced  to
the  family they are not always  what   they  should be,  and  if
my conscious brother could not pass judgment upon the  quality of the
impulses  and desires which well up within our  united family I am
afraid the wrong-doing of this world would be sadly increased.
   Now, my brother, the conscious man, and myself are a pretty good
pair, and  we check one  another, and encourage one another, and help
one  another, sometimes  criticising and  sometimes endorsing one
                              138 
another as best we can;  and I think if we ever get doctors  stirred
up to understand that our sympathetic brother must be put in proper
physical condition in  order that my whisperings to the family may
reach their destination straight, the time will come  when  we will
lead pretty clean lives, and enjoy them, too.
    If I had time I should elaborate for your consideration  another
idea which is by no means a common one, and yet as it is very im-
portant, perhaps you  can give me your  attention for just a few mo-
ments longer, so that I can epitomize it for you.  It relates to the unity
of the two nervous systems.   There  are no isolated nerve  cells  in
either nervous system, and as they  are in close communication with
one  another, trembling vibrations which bring messages to one cell
are transmitted along avenues of communication to other cells, and
so on until the entire  nervous system is conscious of what every part
of it is doing.  So that  in reality when  it comes down  to a  correct
estimate of things as  they really are, there is no such thing as special
sensations from without  or special emotions from within.  The talks
to the family by my conscious brother, or messages to the family  by
myself, have for their audience the  entire accumulation of gray cells
belonging to both the cerebro-spinal and sympathetic brothers. Ours
is a united family, and while  each  one  plays his own part which is
peculiar to himself, his  struggles and his conquests, his sufferings
and his enjoyments,  in fact all the details of his life-history, are a
matter of everyday and  earnest consideration, and are talked over
•by all  the members of our composite family at the family councils,
and there is no time  when a council cannot be called in the interest
of any one of us.
    But, good-by,  dear friends.  I have talked too  long already, and
although  I have  not begun to say what I wanted to, I must stop.
If our interview has been a pleasant one, just call again and we will
have it out some other time.
    Now  you  have heard  from each one of our  composite family
separately, and each  one has done his best  to give you a truthful
conception of the part he has to play in our family of human forms;
but there  is but one way  in which we can any of us do ourselves jus-
tice, obtain the least  degree of satisfaction, or in fact are able even
to exist at all, and that  is by uniting all our shapes into one  com-
mon form which shall stand for us all,  which you may know as the
composite man.
    The composite man,  then, is the man which  is formed  by the
union of  all of our shapes.  He is  not  the bony man, nor the  mus-
                               139 
cular man, nor the arterial man, nor the nervous man, nor any other
of our men, but all of them combined, and he cannot  exist if any-
one of our family is  absent.   Imagine a  human being attempting
to go on without his  bones, or without the skin man entering into
his composition, or without the lymphatic man being present,  or
with the absence of any one of our family, and in thinking of how
he could spare the different  ones, please do not forget the two
unsensed members  of the family, the conscious and  the  subcon-
scious forms!  Without the presence of the life-principle he would
be nothing but a corpse.   Indeed, his existence could never have
been accomplished; and  as my conscious brother and myself  are
so widely different  in our  functions, one of us is just as essential
as the other to the make-up of  the composite man known as the hu-
man being.
   And now  I will leave  the composite man to  speak  for himself.
We have each spoken for ourselves  and occasionally thrown in a
word for each other, but the sum total of us all, the composite man,
will next address you; and as you have had patience to  listen to  the
impersonations  of  the  individuals   of   our  family  of  shapes,
I feel quite confident that you will  not withdraw  your consideration
from our family until the  chorus  of shapes as it comes  from our
composite whole shall say to  you  some few words that shall seem
to him a fitting wind-up for our family entertainment.
   Again thanking you  for your  kind and courteous  attention,  I
retire from your audience in favor of him who was the first object
of our coming together,  and in whose interest we are all enlisted,
and  to  whom we  are each so essential that none of  us  could  be
spared without fastening ruin  and destruction upon each and  all
of us.   His name is  the  composite man,  just an ordinary human
being; any old specimen like you or me will serve to illustrate him.
Truly the greatest study of mankind is man!
140 
 
•StWF
'&$£$
The Composite Man.
Drawn by Frederick H. Williams. 
IMPERSONATION No. 14.
                      the composite man.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
    Our entire family of human shapes has appeared before you one
by  one and  left me for the final impersonation.  Each  has told his
own separate story and now I must speak for us all, so here  I am,
last but not least.  To call myself not least is by no means a conceited
remark, nor will any of our human shapes take offense  at it, simply
because everybody  knows that  the whole is greater than its  parts,
and I am the whole thing.  Those who have spoken to  you on pre-
vious occasions similar to the  present were  simply parts.  In  me
every one of the other shapes is present and in  active operation.  The
family are all united, as it were, in one, and I am that  one, a com-
plete human being in active operation, ready for the business of life.
I may be your grocer,  or butcher, or lawyer,  or doctor, or teacher,
or best friend—anybody, indeed, you may fancy, for human beings
are all cut out after a common pattern, and every human being that
has ever trodden the earth was, like myself, a composite man,  made
up  of  the various  human shapes, such as those who have already
addressed you on previous occasions.
    When none of our members  is sick or out of order, I can tell you
ours is a very happy family, indeed.  When we are all well there is
not a single member of the  family that is in  the least  bit  self-con-
scious.  I do not know I have bones, or blood vessels, or skin, or
nerves, or organs  of any kind.  I  am not even conscious of  my
interior parts, and  also the two spiritual shapes that are a part of
myself do not intrude themselves upon my  attention any more than
do the physical shapes that are included in my  make-up.   All I  know
is that, taken as a whole, I want things and then try to get them, and
this  seems to constitute the business of my life.  I have found out
that what is good for us all is good  for each one of  us, and, on  the
contrary, what is good  for each  one of us is good for us all.
   The mutual relationship between myself  as a whole and  the vari-
ous human shapes  which constitute my parts, is  a wonderful  study
                              141 
and is represented over and over again in every form of organization.
If there happens to be a  member of an organization so unfortunate
as to feel that his private interests seem of more consequence than the
interests of his organization, so that he has no conception of what is
known as universal good—that kind of a fellow, for instance,  that
would cheat a corporation or seek a public position for what he could
get out of it, instead of what service he could render; in other words,
so foolish as to be ruled by  selfish  instead of by  more generous
motives,  a knowledge of the  complete  human being or composite
man—which is to say myself—in his  relationship to the  shapes out
of which he is constructed,  would  point  a  better  way.  You
know  we  gain most  of  our  knowledge  by  comparisons  and
parables.  That  is why our experiences need to be so various, so
that we can see truth illustrated in a  thousand  different ways, ever
the same truth,  but just taught by different teachers, so that we can
be sure to get a just conception of it through the perspective of our
experiences.  The man, for  instance, who is constantly looking cut
for number one, seeking to  get the advantage of his fellows on all
possible occasions, can experiment with this principle of action in
his family, in his business, in his travels and in his enjoyments, and
if  he is a very self-willed fellow and a slow student in the lessons of
life, it may take a good many kinds of disappointments in the various
relations in which he is placed with his fellowmen to bring him to a
realizing sense that the scriptural injunction that one must lay down
his life to find it, must give to get, is  a law of  spiritual physiology,
which runs through every type of human activity.  But I tell you our
family has been so well brought up that each human shape recognizes
that the only way to secure his own health and happiness is to devote
his entire life to the service of the other members of the family, and
each, I think, that has appeared before you, has, in a modest way,
confessed his dependence upon all the others.
   Of course, as I  am the summing up of all the other shapes, if any
one  of  them  were  left out  I  would  not be  myself  at all, but
an unfinished somebody that would scarcely be ready for business,
On the other hand, every one of our members recognizes that there
is  not a single member of the entire family that could be spared and
his own existence  made  possible.  What one of the family do you
think the bony man could spare, for instance?   Could he get along
without blood vessels ?  Could he get  along without nerves ?  Could
he get along without the connective tissue man ?  Could he get along
without  the  lymphatic man?  Could he get  along without life?
142 
 No,  he knows  better  than that,  and  fully  realizes  that  into
 his  shape  enters  every  one  of  the  other  shapes.  So,  too,
 with  the muscular man and with all  of  them; every shape enters
 into every other shape, and so closely are their various organs inter-
 twined  that only as they all move in unison can the meaning of life
 for any one of us be spelled out.  You  will at once understand, then,
 that when all the family are perfectly well and in working order our
 various parts  are entirely devoid of all forms of self-consciousness,
 and that when any member of our family is sick, the whole family is
 sick clear through.  You cannot have  a disturbed bone without dis-
 turbing blood vessels, nerves and lymphatics, and thoughts and feel-
' ings  and impulses.  It  is impossible to have a  diseased muscle that
 does  not visit a corresponding disaster on all the other members of
 the family that enter into its formation, which means us all.
    In view of this fact, there is one very  important reflection which
 I would like to impress upon you.  Now, when I am not self-con-
 scious in any of my parts I find I am in a perfectly natural state.  My
 appetites are  normal and tell me what I need for food and drink,
 and how much.   They preside, also, over my work and my play, and
 guide me  into the harmonious enjoyment of all life,  both physical
 and  spiritual.   How easy it is  for me to be good and kind  and
 teachable and honest and  truthful and virtuous  in every way,  and
 how  simple a matter to perform the various  duties of  my every-day
 life as  they are  unfolded to me!   But when, through  some incident
 or accident, the  harmonious action of  any one  of my  organs is dis-
 turbed, the harmony of my whole being is interfered with, just as a
 single instrument in an orchestra, out of time or tune, is able to spoil
 the effect of any musical creation.  When a  single instrument of an
 orchestra is sick, the whole orchestra is  disturbed,  and in just the
 same way, when one of my organs has lost  his connection with the
 rest  of his "fellows,  he immediately becomes self-conscious and in-
 trudes  himself  upon the entire family of organs.  An unbalanced
 head can make  the feet stumble  and go the  wrong way and plunge
 the whole body  into catastrophe; and feet, too, that are incapacitated
 for their proper  service, can make the  whole man lose his connection
 in life.  It is  of  no use to  occupy your time by multiplying illustra-
 tions of this  universal principle,  for  I think you will immediately
 appreciate the tremendous scope of the  application  of my  remark
 that  when any part of me is sick, I am  sick clear through.  This prin-
 ciple runs through all forms of every possible type of pathology with
 which my organization is  afflicted, be  it inflammation in its  various
                               143 
forms and stages, or neoplasms or atrophies or hypertrophies or any
and every possible diseased condition.  When one of our men  suf-
fers we all suffer, and we will never be happy and well again until
we are well and happy severally and together. I do not believe this
thought will be difficult  for any one of you to comprehend, for you
must immediately perceive that when one of us limps we all limp,
when one of us wheezes we all wheeze, when one of us coughs we
all cough, when one of us sneezes we all sneeze, when one of us in-
flames  we all inflame, when one of us is  discouraged  despondency
settles  down like a wet blanket over our entire family, and when we
are happy the sun shines for us all,  and "God's in His heaven, All's
right with the world."
   In  any infirmities  I  may happen to acquire which come under
sense perception,  my  fellow-men seem to  be  quite troubled.  They
readily sympathize with  all my afflictions and are ready to render
any assistance in their power which my condition may seem to them to
call for.  If I am halt or  blind or deaf or physically upset in any way,
poisoned by microbes, mutilated by accident, or  afflicted  with  any
type of physical pathology that  can be sensed, I am considered by my
fellow-men as unfortunate and afflicted and deserving of all the help
that can be extended to me; but that is  as far  as it goes.  If I forget
things  that I am expected to remember, I am blamed.  If I remem-
ber things that  I  ought to forget, I  am not liked for it.  If  I think
illogically, men  call  me  names—and  how   inconsistent  that  is!
If I am color-blind and cannot  tell blue from green or red from yel-
low,  it is attributed to defective eyesight, and I  am charitably  re-
ferred  to a doctor with the earnest wish that I  may be able to recover
my sight in due time. But if my interior  faculties are so disturbed
that I  cannot see the  truth in the various situations  in which I am
placed, but mistake it  for a lie, and vice versa; if my thinking is in-
accurate  and illogical  and, worse than that,  if my impulses are all
turned  topsy-turvy as well, and I am  irritable where I ought to be
amiable, full of  spite and revenge where I ought to be forgiving,  sus-
picious where I ought to be trustful, lustful where I ought to be virtu-
ous,  I  am not  considered a sick  man, but simply  a bad man.   The
world permits one to limp physically and calls it sickness.  I am here
to tell  you that whenever I limp morally or  intellectually, it is  just
the same thing.   Do not forget, please, that  when I  am sick in any
of my  parts, I am sick clear through.  Please remember, too, what
the sympathetic man told you  and what the subconscious man  also
affirmed in corroboration of his position, that it was natural for every
                              144 
 man  to be  amiable  and honorable and truthful and righteous and
 godlike and healthy  and happy; and when the flow of life comes into
 a perfectly  healthy  physical organization,  these perfect spiritual
 qualities, naturally  enough, find  perfect  physical expression; but
 when the physical telephones are out of order, the music of the in-
 terior voices is sadly disturbed as they attempt to play upon this harp
 of time.
    Please let me tell you right here in confidence, that the physically
 sick,  who are everywhere receiving the world's sympathy and service
 in their behalf, are doing lots of improper thinking and feeling, for,
 as perhaps  you remember my remarking before^ when I am sick,  I
 am sick clear through.  That means my two spiritual  members as
 well  as all the physical shapes.  But, bless your dear hearts,  if you
 have not already done so, won't you please broaden your conception
 of the word metastasis until it comprehends the whole human being,
 and don't narrow it down to simply the physical part of me?   Me-
 tastasis,  you know,  means a change of irritation,  congestion or in-
 flammation, one  and usually all of them, involving,  of course, dis-
 turbed function as well, from one  part of the body to another.  For
 instance, an injury to a nerve of the foot, instead  of causing a sore
 foot,  may be felt at the other end of the nerve fibers  and produce lock-
 jaw.  An irritation of the skin, as  from a burn, instead of inflaming
 the skin, can be transferred and,  through this, the  congestion and
 inflammation, to  the various mucous membranes.   Take an eczema,
 for instance; make use of an ointment which drives  the disorder from
 the skin and it is liable to appear in the form of dyspepsia or intestinal
 catarrh or cough or kidney  trouble or  some other type of mucous
 membrane affection.  Mumps may leave the salivary glands before
 the fury of the disease  is spent and be visited upon the ovaries or
 testicles,  according to the sex. Irritation of the nose or rectum may
 express itself in spasm of the bronchial tubes to such  an extent as to
 take the shape of asthmatic breathing.   The condition of pregnancy
 very frequently causes nausea and vomiting when the stomach  is by
 no means at fault.  You know, too, how a child rubs its nose when-
 ever it has seat or pin worms. So illustrations mieht be multiplied to
 an unlimited extent.   But there are other possibilities of metastasis
 of which vou have no right to be ignorant.  As irritations,  followed
 bv congestions and inflammations, can j'nmp from one  part of a nerve
 fiber to another, from the periphery to the center or from the center
 to the periphery, so they can be transferred from the physical part of
my make-up to my interior organization  and find expression in acute
                              145 
or chronic disorders of my intellectual or emotional part, or both,
Chronic tears may come from physical disturbance when there is no
bodily consciousness  of  disorders;  so can chronic anger, so  can
chronic lust, so can chronic treachery.
   You must, my dear friends, broaden your conception of human
disorders  and their types of expression, for I am right  here to tell
you that it is no more natural  to lie than it is to cough, to hate than
it is to wheeze, to be spiritually or intellectually distorted than it is
to limp physically.  If you grasp the scope of my meaning, you  will
immediately comprehend that  the world stands greatly in need of a
race of doctors  who in their diagnoses comprehend the  entire human
being and not simply the physical part.   When there is a metastasis
from an injured nerve fiber of a foot or hand to the nerve centers  and
the patient has lockjaw, we notice the foot or hand is not  sore.   The
congestion and  inflammation are in  the nerve centers; so, too,  when
there has been a metastasis of  irritation from the outside  man to the
inside man and he is full of wrong impulses, wrong thoughts and con-
sequently  of  wrong actions, the physical disorders which  turn  the
sweetness of his life to bitterness, make the truth as it comes into him
into a lie, are not rendered conspicuous by self-consciousness.   The
irritation, congestion and inflammation have been transferred  from
the outside of things to the inside, and thus are the frailties and weak-
nesses of  humanity which have been called by bad  names nothing
more nor  less than cases of inverted disorders.  They are metastases
from the physical to the spiritual part of us, from the seen to the un-
seen, from the  expression of  forces back to the forces themselves.
This makes sin and sickness synonymous  terms; and  as this  great
truth begins to dawn more and more upon those who are supposed to
be diagnosticians of human pathology in all its forms, it will begin to
be appreciated that the world needs more hospitals and fewer jails  and
penitentiaries, more comprehensive medical attention and fewer re-
form schools and insane asylums, and the era of a broader charity  will
be inaugurated that will be more  in keeping  with the progressive
spirit  of the wonderful time of inspiration in which  it  has been the
privilege of us of the present day to run our earthly careers.
   There  is scarcely a type  of mental or moral crookedness that
has not been cured and restored to mental and moral balance by the
correction, in skillful hands, of previously unsuspected physical  im-
perfections, and all that is necessary to effect the emancipation of the
race from a large part of its mental and emotional unhappiness, as
well as its physical disorders, is to multiply these cures until they
                              U8 
shall become common instead of exceptional.  Only  let the world
once realize that sin and sickness are synonymous terms and medical
conventions will  speedily broaden their scope of application.   The
knowledge which will cure the world is in the world to-day, and what
is  needed  more  than  anything else  is  a  universal friendliness of
remedial agents.  Wrhat will cure one is not adapted to another. Some
cases would yield to the proper suggestion, some call  for  manual
therapeutics to open obstructed channels of circulation, some require
magnetic or electrical  currents to stimulate parts that are dormant,
large numbers  require the art of the surgeon, while skillful prescrib-
ing of drugs is always more or less in demand.
    Is it  not high time that  specialists in medicine recognize  general
medicine and general medicine recognize the  necessity of the  special-
ists?  Let suggestive therapeutics,  manual  therapeutics and  drug
therapeutics cease their  short-sighted rivalry and  meet  in common
convention for the good of mankind.  Then out of the  mutual recog-
nition and appreciation of the various means of healing that  will re-
sult, will come the great help of which the world stands  so sorely in
need.  The fact that mental and emotional deviations from correct
standards  are sicknesses refracted through imperfect physical condi-
tions and are just as legitimately classified in the category of diseases
as are the various types of physical pathology which are diagnosed by
various  means of sense perception, must  first  of all be  universally
recognized, and  no  examination of any sick man is complete  until
his entire  being, both spiritual and  physical, has been submitted to
careful scrutiny  by  a medical expert sufficiently broad  in his  con-
ception of disease to recognize the mutual dependency of mind and
matter and that the fault with all of us who are  sick does not lie with
the  great  fountain of life from which  we all draw our  inspiration,
but  rather with some type of hindrance to  its physical  expression.
Bodily consciousness  on  the part of the patient  has  too long  been
relied upon as trustworthy  testimony in the  study of cases.
    If the  impersonations to which you have listened ever become at
all adequately appreciated by medical men, and the conditions of our
sympathetic brother  and his subconscious  soul ever   succeed  in
obtaining  a recognition adequate to their importance,  the world will
surely reap  the benefit of this  advancement in medical  knowledge,
for humanity will not only be eased of its aches and  pains  and the
self-conscious suffering, but will also be helped to the  possibilities of
honesty and truthfulness and all other essentials of right living.  In
no other way can the evolution of the race out of sickness into health,
                                147 
out of emotional and intellectual crookedness and imperfections into
right living, out of darkness into light, out of  universal misery into
universal happiness, be accomplished.   Suggestion cannot do it all,
manual therapeutics cannot do it all, the ordinary doctor's parapher-
nalia cannot do it all, but a union of all these forces  can accom-
plish it.
    What is first needed, then, is a mutual appreciation and  friendli-
ness among the various means of healing.  What is needed second of
all is a better appreciation of the part which our sympathetic brother
plays  in the physical  economy.  What  is needed third of all  is a
knowledge of  the fact that when we are sick, we are sick  clear
through, requiring that we shall appreciate, fourth  of  all,  that our
two spiritual brothers, the conscious  and the subconscious shapes
which belong to our family, have as much right to charitable consid-
eration and  medical attention as have the more readily understood
physical impersonators to whom you have listened.   Then will it be
possible to so. tune up these "harps of time" that all  their music will
be harmonious when their strings are skillfully played.   Health and
happiness will  be as synonymous as are sin and sickness,  and become
universally enjoyed.
    Are there any who are happy among you ? Are there any who are
perfectly well among you ? Who has yet seen a perfect human being ?
Is not sickness in some type almost universal throughout the world,
and have we not all suffered enough from ourselves and  one another
to be willing to drink deeper of the fountain of knowledge that we
may be better fitted for our tasks of doctoring and nursing and judg-
ing and  helping? We already have an extended knowledge of human
anatomy and physiology.   Are we not willing to lay down our preju-
dices  and narrow-minded conceptions of things,  and make use of
this other higher knowledge for  the universal betterment of our kind ?
Let us  take an inventory of the world's entire stock  of  remedial
measures.  Let us give due  weight to every well authenticated  cure
by  whatever agent, be it  suggestion or manual therapeutics or drug
action or surgery or any other helpful force, and apply these various
remedies as they are separately needed.   Let us graduate from the
schoolboyish practice of relying for our diagnoses upon the testimony
of self-consciousness and contenting ourselves  with eradicating the
mere effects of human disorders, and take the ailments of mankind on
a broad basis of anatomical and physiological knowledge.   Have we
not been sick long enough to stop our foolishness, born of jealousy
and prejudice and narrow-minded conceptions of things ? Then  let us
148 
be wise and get well.   We need not fear that any pet truth of ours
will  be ignored or snubbed.  There is  no truth  that  will not be
wanted; there is no available knowledge that will not be needed; but
the parts must serve the whole, and then the whole will take care of
the parts.
  If I have done my  duty as a composite man, I have  amply illus-
trated the practicality of this great truth.  The closing suggestion
which 1 have to make to you is  that while most of our family have
been carefully studied and appreciated by students of medicine, our
sympathetic brother, because of his uncomplaining nature and of his
speaking in a language of function instead of the loud-mouthed decla-
mation of the senses,  has been overlooked and neglected, and I com-
mend to your careful consideration the waste and repair of the sympa-
thetic nerve as the key to the situation. When you begin to give the
sympathetic man  the  attention which he should  long since have re-
ceived at your hands, you will begin to see disease with your minds
instead of simply staring at it with your  outward eyes.  The appear-
ances of things will no longer dazzle you, but your X-ray faculties will
come to your assistance, and the sick will have a more substantial hope
of complete recovery.   Your cures will go beyond the mere self-con-
sciousness  of your cases to their substantial and more satisfactory
building up, and when this is accomplished, sin will melt away with
the sickness, and  the eccentricities  and unfortunate tendencies of
mankind, which are so prolific of human misery, will fade away like
darkness before the dawn.
   Perfect specimens of human beings are rare, and yet humanity
sick as it  has been,  has  accomplished much.   It has pronounced
great orations, written great essays, solved great problems, accom-
plished great inventions and wrought all  the wonderful works of
civilization of which  we are so proud;  but if  humanity, sick with
its physical disorders and mental  and emotional  crookedness, has
accomplished  so much, what may we not expect  from these Sons
of God when the evolution of their genius is once accomplished unem-
barrassed by disordered  functions and hampered inspirations?
   Ladies  and gentlemen,  the  impersonations  upon  the  parts of
various members of our family, to which  you have listened with such
complimentary attention,  are  but  mere  outlines of  the anatomical
and  physiological  knowledge which they might have presented to
you.   What  few  pleasantries have been  indulged in  by our various
speakers were merely intended to render  more entertaining the mass
of historical  facts which otherwise, it was feared,  would prove too
149 
dull and dry to be interesting. But no fact has been distorted or per-
verted. It  will be safe for you to rely upon every statement to  which
you have so patiently listened, and if these superficial impersonations
prove at all interesting  or helpful to you  and you  desire a more
thoroughly elaborated  life history  of  the various  members of  our
family,  I  feel confident  that   our entire  family  will  be  at your
service  and   furnish  you   with   more  completely   elaborated
life histories  at  some future  time.   We all  appreciate the com-
pliment of your  close  attention,  I  can assure you, and  only hope
that our audience has  enjoyed the  speakers as much as  the speak-
ers have enjoyed the audience.  Any man who thoroughly  compre-
hends the bearing of all our impersonations  severally and collect-
ively ought to be pretty well  fortified for any position in life in
which he is placed, for our little world but typifies the bigger world
of which we  are  all but  a part, and when you know us,  you  know
yourselves, and to know  one's self is to be wiser than most men.
    Again  thanking you for your kind audience, and in behalf of  our
family  of  human  shapes and as the representative of them  all,  I
most respectfully bid you  good day.
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