ur or two after food has entered
the intestine it is almost as thin a fluid as milk. Millions of tiny
fingerlike growths stick out from the inner side of the intestines
and drink in the watery food. These little fingers for drinking up the
food are scarcely one fourth as large as the point of a pencil. They
are called _villi_.

The villi are filled with blood tubes having thin walls. The food passes
through these walls into the blood stream. Much of it then goes to the
liver, but the fatty parts flow up a tube along the backbone and empty
into a blood tube in the neck. From the neck and the liver the food goes
with the blood to the heart which sends it to all parts of the body.

=What the Liver does.=--The liver is a dark red body nearly as large
as the upper half of your head. It lies just below the diaphragm. It
works night and day helping to keep the inner parts of the body clean
and at the same time deal out food.

The liver takes some waste out of the blood and sends it out into the
intestine with the bile. When there is no food in the intestine, the
bile is stored up in the _gall bladder_ under the liver. The liver
changes certain waste matter in the blood into such form that other
organs can cast it out of the body. It also stores up certain parts of
the food coming from the intestines and gives it out to the body
little by little as it is needed.

=When and How much to Eat.=--When the food organs do not do their work
rightly, the whole body becomes sick. Eating too much overworks the
stomach. It becomes so full that the food cannot be moved about and
well mixed with the juices. Germs then work on the food and make it
sour. In fact the germs may change part of the food into a poison.
This poison will cause headache and a bad feeling.

Do not form a habit of taking powders to cure headache. They are likely
to hurt the heart. Take less food, eat it more slowly, and do not wash
it down with drink. Stop eating before your stomach feels full.

Each meal gives the stomach about four hours of work to do. It then
needs one hour of rest. This shows that the time from one meal to the
next should be about five hours. Very young children and sick persons
need food oftener. Boys and girls should not eat candies, cake, or
other food between meals. It spoils the appetite and is likely to get
the stomach out of working order.

=Danger Signals.=--A white or yellowish coat on the tongue, a bad
breath, pain in the bowels, o