mbs 052

MY BREATHING SYSTEM

1 think there exists a good deal of superstition about the diaphragm, this mysterious organ, which nevertheless, every man in the Street, in his own fancy, knows just as well as his pocket.

I am convinced that it is quite impossible to move the diaphragm scparately intentionally or voluntarily, although, of course, we move it indircctly by moving the ribs or the abdominal muscles. It would be easier to belicve, as is asserted, that certain Hindus are able to arrest the pulsation of their hearts for a short period, because we can locate the heart both by feeling and by hearing it. And in such cascs it is easier to get a connection of nerve between the brain and the organ in ąuestion. But the diaphragm cannot be perceived through any of our senses, and I, therefore, rnain tain it is impossible to establish direct nervous contact with it. I know that many people will assert that such move-ments as are illustrated in Figs. 44 and 45 are caused by the diaphragm ; but it is impossible to explain how the diaphragm can achieve such results. And there is surely no reason why the diaphragm should perform a thing which is easily done by the abdominal muscles. The diaphragm is a ąuietly and unconsciously working breathing muscle. But it is easy to perform the movements of Figs. 44 and 45, without breathing ; or even when breathing in the exactlv opposite way, as shown in Figs. ri and 12, where Fig. 11 represents the fullest possible inhalation, and Fig. 12 the exhalation.

The direct proof of the fact that nobody can move his diaphragm voluntarily, or come into direct nervous contact with it, is that all the sensations which people imagine that they have in the diaphragm are always actually in the abdominal wali, or perhaps in the stornach or intestines. If you ask a person to point out where he thitiks his diaphragm is, he will, in nine cases out of ten, put his finger near the