MAN, WONDERS OF

3281 Precision Engineering

The body’s entire structure, from head to foot, is a miracle of precision engineering and production. No matter what portion of the human body is considered, one cannot but be impressed with what a marvelous mechanism each member is.

The major organs alone—and there are 10 of them—perform such unique feats of electric conduction that it would take a big book to explain each one adequately.

In the fraction of a second that it takes you to read one word on this page, the marrow in your bones produces over 100,000 red blood cells.

3282 The Human Cell

There are several trillion hard-working cells in every person.

A cell is so small it takes 250 of them, placed side by side, to equal the diameter of a dot. Inside the membrane of each cell, swimming around in the cytoplasm, are about 200 of these wiggling, squirming particles, each one a living and active chemical laboratory, a food and energy factory.

Inside of each of these cells are about 200 wiggling mitochondria. Each one of these would be about 1/50,000th the size of a globe as big as a dot! Inside of each mitochondrion are hundreds of small “spheres” scattered along stalks in the mitochondrion. Each sphere is about 1/1,000th the size of the mitochondrion! So, each sphere would be about one-five-millionth (1/5,000,000) the size of a dot! Each of these tiny spheres is a chemical factory, with a “production line” that produces energy and food for the cell. This is such a marvel of smallness and intricate complexity that it stretches one’s imagination even to try to think of it.

—Christian Victory

3283 Your Working Day

If you’re an adult of average weight, here is what you accomplish in 24 hours:

Your heart beats 103,689 times.

Your blood travels 168,000,000 miles.

You breathe 23,040 times.

You inhale 438 cubic feet of air.

You eat 3¼ pounds of food.

You drink 2.9 quarts of liquids.

You lose 7/8 pound of waste.

You speak 4,800 words, including some unnecessary ones.

You move 750 muscles.

Your nails grow . 000046 inch.

Your hair grows . 01714 inch.

You exercise 7,000,000 brain cells.

… feel tired?

3284 The Eyes

No scientific instrument is as sensitive to the light as a person’s eye. And in the dark, its sensitivity increases 100,000 times; one can detect a faint glow, less than a thousandth as bright as a candle’s flame. He can see light from the stars, and the nearest of all stars is 25 billion miles away!

Automatically, the muscles of the eye relax so that the lens is small and thick for distant viewing or they stretch the lens to bring into focus. No wonder the eye was the original model for cameras.

Moreover, the reason a person doesn’t spit in his own eye is because of his astonishing reflexes. Due to God’s foresight, man’s eyelids automatically close when he sneezes. At the same time his soft palate opens wide to permit expulsion through the nasal passage. But it closes tightly when he goes to cough, in order to channel irritants out via the throat.

3285 The Ears

The ear is as much an acoustic marvel as the eye is an optic one. The inner ear is like a keyboard with 15,000 keys, because that is the number of different tones that can be detected. Not only does the ear perform the function of hearing, it acts to control equilibrium as well. Who but God could have originated such a dual purpose instrument?

3286 The Brain

Even though your brain will forget more than 90 percent of what you learn during your lifetime, it may still store up as much as 10 times more information than there is in the Library of Congress, with its 17 million volumes.

—Lawrence Galton

3287 More On Brain

An issue of Sunshine Magazine compares the human mind to a computer. It stated that scientists were asked to determine the size, the cooling system, and the power required to perform electronically the same functions that are automatically accomplished by a man’s brain during his lifetime. They decided that if all parts were transistorized and built on a miniature scale like those used in rockets to the moon, the following would be needed:

“A machine the size of the United Nations building in New York; a cooling system with an output equal to Niagara Falls; and a power source that would produce as much electricity as is used in homes and industry in the entire state of California.”

3288 The Graceful Girl

A woman’s skull is relatively longer than a man’s but her neck is quite a bit shorter. Her thumb also is smaller than a man’s but her index finger is relatively longer, and her wrists swivel with more ease. Thus she becomes more “feminine.”

3289 Living It Out

The human body is wonderfully strong. Even when it is defective it will go on for years and years. John D. Rockefeller had gastritis and nervous dyspepsia at forty, but he lived to be nearly ninety-eight. Cecil Rhodes had lung trouble at twenty-one. A doctor told him he had only six months to live. But he lived to be forty-nine. Herbert Spencer was an invalid all his life, but he wielded a worldwide influence and lived to be eighty-three.

3290 No Absolute Limits

After satisfying himself that there must be some absolute limits to human strength, speed, agility and endurance, Brutus Hamilton, coach of the U.S. Olympic team about 20 years ago, compiled a list of what he considered to be the “ultimate” in track and field performances. No one, said Hamilton out of confidence based on long experience, would ever run the 100-yard dash in less than 9.2 sec. or the mile in less than 3 min. 57.8 sec. No one would ever put the shot more than 62 ft., throw the discus more than 200 ft., do better than 7 ft. 1 in high jump, 27 ft. in the long jump, or 16 ft. in the pole vault.

Since then, in every case, someone has.

3291 Enduring Electric Shock

Two thousand volts is the usual charge delivered to a man on the electric chair. Respiration and circulation are almost instantly stopped.

But in 1955, Charles Kirk Patrick accidentally touched a live wire carrying 11,000 volts. His legs were badly burned and the left leg had to be amputated. He was unconscious for two weeks but he lived.

3292 Surviving Highest Falls

How long a fall has anyone survived without a parachute?

Believe it or not, 6,705 meters (22,000 feet)! The survivor was a Russian, Lieutenant Chisov, and he fell from his badly damaged plane in January 1942. He had the luck to fall on the edge of a ravine blanketed with snow and, because he struck it glacingly, slid as he landed. He was badly injured but survived to return to his duties.

An even more incredible escape happened to Flight Sergeant Alkemade in 1944, when he jumped from his blazing bomber over Germany. He fell headlong 5,486 meters (18,000 feet), broke the fall on a fir tree and continued downwards into a knee-high bank of snow. The damage? Nil!

—David Jefferis

3293 First Survivor Of Niagara Falls

On July 9, 1960, Roger Woodard became the first person known to survive a plunge over the Niagara Falls. That afternoon, he and a friend were boating above the falls when the motor failed. A huge wave overturned the boat, throwing both into the swift current. Roger’s companion vanished, while he, wearing a life jacket, was swept over the 162-foot precipice.

The tourist boat, Maid of the Mist, happened to be at the bottom of the falls and the captain heard Roger crying “Help!” A life ring was thrown to him. He grabbed it and was hauled to safety.

A year later, he accepted Christ as his Savior, and said: “I guess the Lord saved me the first time so that I could be saved the second time.”

3294 36-Year Bullet In His Body

Cravesend, England, (UPI)—Don Sydall had this nagging backache. So his doctor took an X-ray. It showed a bullet in the back which Sydall, 58, had been carrying around for 36 years without knowing it.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Sydall said. “Now I feel guite proud. Not many people can boast of a bullet they never knew they had.”

Doctors decided against operating to remove the old wound, probably fired into Sydall during wartime fighting near Dunkirk in 1940.

3295 Arrow In The Head

Jose Silva, Bolivia, had an argument with a Siriono Indian who discharged an arrow into his face. The arrowhead entered near the temple and emerged near the nose. It was several months before Silva saw a doctor. The physician advised an immediate extraction but the victim paled at the painful prospect. He had grown used to the missile in his countenance and no longer reacted to the startled glances of casual passersby. For 11 years he continued to live a normal life undisturbed by the protruding four-foot shaft. Only when he was on his deathbed did he request a post-mortem extraction lest he face his Maker so grotesquely adorned.

—Selected

3296 Walking On Broken Foot

More than 25 years ago, Bishop Potter, riding in the Yosemite Valley, fell from his horse and injured a foot. The foot grew better, but it has troubled him some ever since. When the X-ray was turned on it, it was discovered that for 25 years he had been walking on a broken foot.