Philosophies, Speeches, Thoughts, Ideas

by Ole A. Olmanson


The Language of Blood

(Delivered by myself twice at Young People’s Society 20 years apart.)

We live in an industrial and mechanical age. We know how to run our car, we know the inside of a tractor, know all of its inside parts and how to care for them. If the grainbinder should miss a bundle, we examine the open band and know at a glance what to adjust in order to make it tie. We are not so familiar with our own bodies. We should know more aobut our body that we may be more able ot take care of this little shell that is the present abode of our souls.

In speaking on the language of blood, I shall introduce you to just a tiny drop of blood, leaving out the serum, the hemoglobin and lots of stuff. And besides I shall leave out all that I do not know about blood, which is a good deal, enough to fill many volumes. Blood has a language. If you reflect upon all the blood that has been shed upon the battlefields of war during the ages, you must admit that blood has spoken a powerful language.

Do you remember about the first murder at the very dawn of history? God asked Cain, “Where is thy brother?” Cain tried to get away with a bluff, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The Lord told him right to his face, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.”

It is not only in this case that the blood of the murdered man has spoken. Even today the blood of the murdered one accuses the murderer. The first authorities will do in a murder case is to try to find a trace of blood. When found, the suspect will invariably attribute it to rabbit blood or chicken blood or something. The chemist takes a little of that blood and injects it into a rabbit or chicken as the case might be. He then lets the animal rest for eight days after which he gives it an injection of what he knows to be human blood. Any animal, including man, can stand one injection of blood from a different species. But a second injection from that same species results in death. Now in the case of the rabbit or guinea pig, if the first injection was anything besides human blood, he will live. But if the first one also was human blood, thus getting two injections of the same species, he dies.

You all remember how King Solomon decided in the case of the two babies who was the true mother. We have no Solomon’s today. But in a case like that the chemist would take two blood samples of the babies, make a test, and in fifteen minutes he could say where they belonged. Blood speaks!

There is so much in a drop of blood and the objects in there are so great in number that they become bewildering. Therefore, the chemist has devised a little instrument by which he can measure out one cubic milligram of blood. That is just a little fraction of one drop and he is using that as a standard in figuring. A cubic milligram of blood is a very small part of man and not so wonderful as some other parts of him, but it is enough to prove to any doubting Thomas that man could not come about by himself without a Creator.

If you are sick, the doctor as a chemist will examine your blood for uric acid, ammonia, phosphate, sulfates, and one hundred other things. The doctor reads your blood like a professor reads a book. If you are going to have an operation, he will count the number of platelets in your blood. Your are supposed to have 350,000 to a cubic milligram. If you have less, your blood will not clot and you will bleed to death. Thus blood speaks and warns you.

In a cubic milligram there are 5,000,000 red corpuscles. If you have more than this number, say 8,000,000 you have too much blood. If you have less, you have too little blood, or anemia. Here is how the chemist counts the corpuscles. He takes one cubic milligram of your blood, smears it on a piece of glass very thinly. He is careful to have only one thickness of corpuscles on it. His glass is marked off in little squares. All he counts is one square and then he multiplies by the number of squares.

Just one word on the white corpuscles in your blood, only 8,000 to a cubic milligram. These are of many kinds and are some wonderful little fellows. They are our protectors, the soldiers in our blood that go after any enemy or disease or germ that enters our system. The most wonderful part of it is that there is not room enough for a big enough army of them to do the fighting. There are only a few of each kind, but the minute that they are needed the Lord has provided that they at once multiply in the marrow of our bones and are rushed out into our blood streams at a tremendous rate of speed, ready for the onslaught of the particular enemy.

Medicine and doctors would have little popularity today if it was not for the fact that through carelessness, neglect, abuse, and ignorance, our system has run down and become slow and sluggish. The doctors can furry on these soldiers somewhat. In diptheria for instance, a horse is injected with a mild form of diptheria. The serum extracted from his blood is injected into the system of the diptheria patient, thus giving him many days advance fighting the disease. To get ahead of smallpox, vaccinate with cow pox. The same holds true of typhoid fever and so forth.

The big trick is to be able to tell all these white corpuscles from one another. To do this the chemist colors or tints them. You all know if you put a white handkerchief into blue dye, it will turn blue. But if you put a red handkerchief into the same dye, it will come out a different hue. And so with these little soldiers, they come out with different hues.

Of the Lymphocytes, you are to have 25% of the white corpuscles. If you have more than that in great numbers, the doctor suspects that you have either whooping cough, TB of long standing, or typhoid fever. They are there to fight this kind of disease. Of the polymorphy nuclear bosophilis you are supposed to have only 2%. If more, the trouble is having been exposed to too much violet ray treatment. Of the polymorphy nuclear evoinophisis you are supposed to have 1%. If more, you have trichina, worms, or scarlet fever. Of the polymorphy nuclear philis you are supposed to have 70%. If in greater number, you have appendicitis or some internal infection.

You will notice that every one of the little fellows all look different from one another. Some are almost alike, but there is always a little mark of difference, like the Lord did with Cain. He put a mark on him and so he has marked everything. He made our faces all different which comes in very handy. He has put an earmark on every bug, bacteria, and disease germ, so that we can recognize them at a glance. Our finger prints are all different, and not a single leaf on a tree is alike.

The man-made seven wonders of the world are nothing in comparison to the wonders in a drop of blood. We mortals, that are only a little speck in the light of the rest of the creation, do not always stop to appreciate and to glorify God’s creation and the wonders thereof. But I know that there will be people in heaven that shall kneel before the throne of God and glorify Him, not only for the Redemption, but also for the Creation.

In the last verse of the fourth chapter of Revelation, it tells about the 24 elders where they fell down before the throne to worship Him that lives forever saying, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are, and were created.”


A Letter to the Governor >>

<< Astronomy

Philosophies, Speeches, Thoughts, Ideas