cal chords
Ears
Cheeks
Chin

CLASS III

Elbows
Ankles
Aorta
Teeth (if natural)
Shoulders
Windpipe
Lungs
Neck
Jugular vein

CLASS IV

Stomach (English)
Liver (American)
Solar plexus
Hips
Calves
Pleura
Nose
Feet (bare)
Shins

CLASS V

Teeth (if false)
Heels
Toes
Kidneys
Knees
Diaphragm
Thyroid gland
Legs (female)
Scalp

CLASS VI

Thighs
Paunch
Oesophagus
Spleen
Pancreas
Gall-bladder
Caecum

I made two more classes, VII and VIII, but they entered into anatomical
details impossible of discussion in a book designed to be read aloud at
the domestic hearth. Perhaps I shall print them in the _Medical Times_
at some future time. As my classes stand, they present mysteries enough.
Why should the bronchial tubes (Class II) be so much lordlier than the
lungs (Class III) to which they lead? And why should the oesophagus
(Class VI) be so much _less_ lordly than the stomach (Class II in the
United States, Class IV in England) to which _it_ leads? And yet the
fact in each case is known to us all. To have a touch of bronchitis is
almost fashionable; to have pneumonia is merely bad luck. The stomach,
at least in America, is so respectable that it dignifies even
seasickness, but I have never heard of any decent man who ever had any
trouble with his oesophagus.

If you wish a short cut to a strange organ's standing, study its
diseases. Generally speaking, they are sure indices. Let us imagine a
problem: What is the relative respectability of the hair and the scalp,
close neighbors, offspring of the same osseous tissue? Turn to baldness
and dandruff, and you have your answer. To be bald is no more than a
genial jocosity, a harmless foible--but to have dandruff is almost as
bad as to have beri-beri. Hence the fact that the hair is in Class I,
while the scalp is at the bottom of Class V. So again and again. To
break one's collar-bone (Class II) is to be in harmony with the nobility
and gentry; to crack one's shin (Class IV) is merely vulgar. And what a
difference between having one's tonsils cut out (Class II) and getting a
new set of false teeth (Class V)!

Wherefore? Why? To what end? Why is the stomach so much more respectable
(even in England) than the spleen; the liver (even in America) than the
pancreas; the windpipe than the oesophagus; the pleura than the
diaphragm? Why is the collar-bone the undisputed king of