58 MECHANISM OF ADSORPTION. 



to stop the experiment. I afterwards repeated it, 

 covering the short end of the tnbe with two mem- 

 branes instead of one, but using a tube several inches 

 shorter than in the last case, and found that there 

 was a very slow, but steady and constant, flow of the 

 fluid towards the stream ; the fluid which thus tra- 

 versed the tube being opposed in its flow by gravity, 

 and being itself of greater specific gravity than that 

 of the water constituting the stream. 



By these direct experiments, and from a careful 

 consideration of the chain of indirect evidence fur- 

 nished by a number of morbid and healthy actions 

 that are known to occur in the bodies of animals, I 

 am, I think, justified, even in the present incipient 

 stage of the inquiry, in making the following state- 

 ment. 



That as it has been shown that the effusion of 

 albuminous matters through the coats of the vessels 

 of the living body is produced by and modified in its 

 nature according to the degree of the compression of 

 the blood contained within them, this action being 

 independent of and even in opposition to the ordinary 

 laws of exosmosis as deduced from experiments on 

 stagnant fluids ; so I believe the chief part of the 

 process of absorption in animals to arise from and 

 depend on a force existing within the blood-vessels, 

 that force being generated by, and proportioned to, 

 the velocity of the moving mass by which, in a 

 healthy state, they are incessantly traversed. 



Th\t something like a suction-power acts in 

 promoting or causing absorption is undoubtedly a 

 very old opinion, and the truth of this remark is 



