Читать книгу The History of a Mouthful of Bread - Jean Macé - Страница 17

You remember a certain door-keeper, or porter, of whom we have already spoken a good deal, who resides in the mouth—the sense of taste, I mean?

Well, it is a porter's business to sweep out the entrance to a house, and you may always recognize him in the courtyard by his broom.

And accordingly our porter too has a broom specially placed at his service, namely, the tongue; and an unrivalled broom it is—for it is self-acting, never wears out, and makes no dust—qualities we cannot succeed in obtaining in any brooms of our own manufacture.

When the time has come for the pounded mouthful (described in the last chapter) to travel forward (the teeth having properly prepared it), the broom begins its work; scouring all along the gums, twisting and turning right and left, backwards and forwards, up and down; picking up the least grains of the pulp which have been manufactured in the mouth; and as the heap increases, it makes itself into a shovel—another accomplishment one would scarcely have expected it to possess. What it gathers together thus, rolls by degrees on its surface into a ball, which at last finds itself fixed between the palate and the tongue in such a manner that it cannot escape; at which moment the tongue presses its tip against the upper front teeth, forms of itself an inclined plane, and—but stop! we are getting on too fast.

At the back of the mouth, (which is the antechamber, as we said before,) is a sort of lobby, separated from the mouth by a little fleshy tongue_let_, suspended to the palate, exactly like those tapestry curtains which are sometimes hung between two rooms, under which one is enabled to pass, by just lifting them up.

If this lobby led only from the mouth to the stomach, the act of swallowing would be the simplest thing in the world; the tongue would be raised, the pounded ball would glide on, would pass under the curtain, and then good-bye to it. Unfortunately, however, the architect of the house seems to have economized his construction-apparatus here. The lobby serves two purposes; it is the passage from the mouth to the stomach, as well as from the nose to the lungs.

The air we breathe has its two separate doors there—one opening towards the nose, the other towards the lungs; through neither of which is any sort of food allowed to pass. But, as you may imagine, the food itself knows nothing of such spiteful restraints, and it is a matter of perfect indifference to it through which of the doors it passes. Not unlike a good many children who, though they are reasonable creatures, will push their way into places where they have been forbidden to go; and who can expect a pulpy food-ball to be more reasonable than a child? It was necessary, therefore, so to arrange matters that there should be no choice on the subject; that when the food-ball got into the lobby it should find no door open but its own, namely, that which led to the stomach. And that is exactly what is done.

You have not, perhaps, remarked that in the act of swallowing, something rises and contracts itself at the same moment in your throat, producing a kind of internal convulsion which jerks whatever is inside. People do not think about it when they are eating, because it is an involuntary action, and their attention is otherwise engaged.

But try to swallow when there is nothing in your mouth, and you will perceive what I mean at once.

Now, imagine our lobby at the back of the throat as a small closet, with a doorway in its wall, half-way up, the doorway being closed by a curtain. In the ceiling is a hole, which leads to the nose; in the floor two large tubes open out; the front one leading to the lungs, the one behind, to the stomach.

Now swallow, and I will tell you what happens. The curtain rises up and clings to the ceiling, and thus the passage to the nose is stopped up. The lung-tube rises along the wall, and hides itself under the door, contracting itself, and making itself quite small, as if it wished to leave plenty of room for the mouthful of food which is about to pass over it; and, for still greater security, at the very moment it rises, it pushes against a small trap-door which shuts up its mouth. No other road remains, therefore, but through the tube which leads to the stomach; the pulpy mouthful drops straight therein, without risk of mistake, and when it is once there, everything readjusts itself as before.

These are very ingenious contrivances, and I will venture to say that if we would but study the wonders of the marvellous and varied machinery which is constantly at work in our behalf within us, we should be much better employed than in learning things from which no practical good can be derived. Moreover, we should be ashamed to trust, like the lower animals, only to our instinct, (which, after all, is much less developed in us than in them,) for blindly escaping the thousand chances of destruction that beset a structure so fragile and delicate in its contrivances as the human body. Besides, it is not only our own machinery that is entrusted to us, we are liable to be responsible for that of others, whose development it is our duty to guard and watch; and how can we do this with a safe conscience, if we are ignorant of the construction, the action, the laws of all sorts which the great Artificer has, so to speak, made use of in forming our bodies?

When you, in your turn, are a mother, you dear little rogue, who sit there opening wide your bright eyes, and not comprehending a word of what I am saying, you will be glad that you were taught when you were little, how your own little girl ought to be managed. You will find a hundred opportunities of making good use, in her behalf, of what you and I are learning together, and in the meantime there is no reason why you should not yourself profit by the knowledge you have gained.

I am quite sure, for instance, that in repeating to your child the simple rule of politeness, with which everybody is acquainted, "Never talk when you are eating," you will be very careful to add, "and especially when you are swallowing," for reasons I am about to detail.

When we want to speak we have to drive the air from the lungs into the mouth, and our words are sounds produced by this air as it passes through. This is the reason why I advise you to go on gently, and make the proper stops in reading aloud: to take breath, in fact, as it is called; otherwise, breath would all at once fail you, and you would be obliged to stop short in the middle of a sentence and wait like a simpleton till you had refilled the lungs with air by breathing. It was for this purpose, also, and not for mere economy's sake, as you may have thought, that the little cross-road of four doors has been placed at the back of the mouth, enabling it to communicate at pleasure with either the lungs or the stomach. It is a dangerous passage for food-parcels making their way to the stomach; but if you could substitute for it, as it may have occurred to you to do lately, a simple tube going directly to the stomach—behold! you would find yourself dumb;—a serious misfortune, eh? for a little girl! But come, I am quizzing too much, so console yourself. I know many grown-up people who would be at least as sorry as yourself.

To return to our subject. We have said that, in order to guard against accidents, the lung-tube is closed at the moment we are about to swallow. But if by any unlucky chance the air is coming up from the lungs at the same moment, it must have a free passage. Its tube cannot help returning to its place; the little trap-door which shuts up the opening opens whether or no, and then adieu to all the precautions of good Mother Nature! The mouthful when it drops, falls outside of its proper tube—that is to say, into the other, which is exactly in front of it, and we find that we have swallowed the wrong way.

You know what happens in such a case. You cough and cough till you are torn to pieces, till you grow scarlet, or even blue in the face; till you lose your breath; till your body trembles; till your eyes start out of their sockets. Let who will be there, there is no resource but to hide your face in your handkerchief. The tube, which was only made for the passage of air, on finding an intruder forcing an entrance, does its utmost to drive it back through the door. Then the lungs, which would be destroyed by its getting to them, come to the assistance of the faithful servant who is struggling for their protection: they agitate themselves violently, and send forth gusts of air which drive all before them. Thence arises the cough, and by this means at last the enemy is thrust out of the mouth, like dust before the wind. And it is only when the passages are cleared that the storm subsides. But the commotion is no laughing matter, I assure you; for if one had swallowed a little too far the wrong way, or if the substance swallowed had been too heavy for the air-tube, aided by the lungs, to eject within a certain time, death would have ensued: instances of which are by no means unknown. Nature does nothing in vain; this is no case of a man frightened by a mouse. When you find your whole being concentrating its efforts to one point, and betraying such distress, at an accident apparently so trifling, you may be sure there is danger, and real danger too; and if you doubt it, that makes no difference—happily for you.

Now you have learned why little girls should not attempt to talk and swallow at the same time, and, I may add, still less laugh; for laughingis a kind of somersault, performed by the lungs, and is always accompanied by the ejectment of a great deal more breath than is necessary in speaking, so that the jerks it occasions derange still more the wise provisions made to protect life whenever we swallow anything, and therefore we are more apt to swallow the wrong way while laughing than while speaking.

Need I say that we ought equally to guard against making others laugh or talk; or exciting, or frightening them, while they are swallowing; in short, avoid doing anything to create a sudden shock which might suddenly force the air out of their lungs, and cause them in the same manner to swallow the wrong way? Politeness requires this from us, and what I have now said will fix the lesson still more strongly on your mind. What would become of you if you were to see a person die in your presence in consequence of some foolish joke, however apparently innocent?

Not to conclude with so painful a picture, I will, before we part, give you the right names of the curtain, the lobby or closet, and the tubes of which we have been speaking.

The curtain is called the Soft Palate.

The lobby, the Pharynx.

The tube which leads to the stomach, the Aesophagus.

The tube leading to the lungs, the Larynx.

The opening of this tube is the Glottis, and the little trap-door which closes it when one swallows, is the Epiglottis.

You must excuse my attempting to explain the meanings of all these names; it would take me too long to do so. After all, the mere names are nothing. If I have succeeded in making you understand how all the different parts act, you may call them what you like.

Here we will rest. We are now on our way to where we shall see the large apartments, and be introduced to the master, that head of the house, whom no one can approach without so many ceremonies.