440 OF NUTRITION. 



aggravated forms of this disorder. For the special aptitude for the corn- 

 bustive process which is characteristic of Alcohol, may give it such a pref- 

 erence in this operation over the ordinary combustive material, that the 

 conversion of the latter by oxidation into carbonic acid and water is kept 

 back, so long as Alcohol is present ; and thus the blood of drunkards be- 

 comes so highly charged with fat, that it might be itself considered to be in 

 a state of fatty degeneration. 1 This distinct evidence of the operation of 

 Alcohol habitually received into the blood in large quantities, affords an 

 obvious indication that the habitual consumption of even a much smaller 

 amount will tend to produce fatty degeneration at more remote periods and 

 in a less aggravated degree; and the participation which this state has been 

 shown to have in the production of a large proportion of the diseases of 

 Old Age, especially by the changes it induces in the texture of the heart 

 and of the walls of the bloodvessels (which are particularly liable to it), 

 fully bears out this idea. 



352. It may be stated as a general rule, that no absorption of the mate- 

 rials of tissues can take place, without a previous degeneration such as this, 

 or a more complete decomposition. There is no evidence that any healthy 

 tissue is ever thus absorbed, or that any preternatural activity of the absorb- 

 ent vessels can ever (as formerly supposed) be the occasion of a loss of sub- 

 stance; in fact, so long as the vital force is in active operation in a part, and 

 its processes of growth and development are being normally carried on, such 

 absorption may be considered to be impossible. On .the other hand, if a 

 part die en masse, it is not removed by absorption, but becomes isolated by 

 the separation and recedeuce of the living parts, and is then cast out al- 

 together, even from the interior of the body, as we see in the case of a ne- 

 crosed bone ; its condition being then essentially the same as that of the 

 outer layers of the tegumentary organs, which are cut off, by their distance 

 from a vascular surface, from all further nutrient change. The difference 

 between these two modes of removal is well seen (as Mr. Paget has remarked) 

 in the case of the Teeth ; for the fangs of the deciduous teeth undergo de- 

 generation, when the current of nutrition is diverted towards those which 

 are to succeed them, their materials being slowly decomposed, so as to be- 

 come soluble, and being gradually removed by absorption, so that nothing 

 is left at last but the crowns of the teeth ; on the other hand, the permanent 

 teeth, which are not to be succeeded by others, when no longer receiving 

 their due nutrition, die, and are cast out entire. 



353. Among the conditions of healthy Nutrition, a due supply of Nervous 

 power is commonly enumerated ; and it cannot be questioned that the want 

 of such a supply is frequently the source of a perversion of the normal oper- 

 ations. This, however, by no means proves that the formative power is de- 

 rived from the nervous system ; and such an idea is at once negatived by a 

 number of incontestable facts. Yet it may be freely admitted that the right 

 direction and application of this power in nutrition, may sometimes depend 

 upon guidance and direction afforded by the Nervous centres, in the same 

 manner as the Secreting process is capable of being thus affected ; in fact, 

 we can scarcely explain in any other mode that influence of mental states 

 upon the nutrient operations, which frequently leads to very important modi- 



1 Tlic quantity of fat in the blood of drunkards lias been found in some cases to be 

 as much as 11.7 parts in 1000 (Lecanu), the highest estimate of the quantity in health 

 bring 8 65 parts. Scharlau has found as much as 30 per cent, more carbon in the 

 blood of a drunkard than in that of a healthy man. See Dr: Huss's treatise on Alco- 

 holismus Ohronicus, Rokitansky's Handbuch der allgemeinen pathologischen Anat- 

 omic, Bd. iv, and Brit, and For. Med.-Chir. Rev., vol. xii, pp. 33, 34. 



