40 CAUSE OF THE CHANGE OF VOLUME IN 



affinity mo- degrees of force by solid bodies, and exert towards 

 them unequal degrees of attraction, and if we alter 



even in a system of capillary tubes, filled to a 

 certain height with a liquid, the chemical nature of 

 that liquid, we change thereby the height at which 

 the liquid stands. In an animal tissue saturated 

 with water, the water is prevented from flowing out 

 by the mutual attraction, and by the capillary force, 

 but if the attraction of the organic parietes for 

 water be diminished by the addition of alcohol or 

 of salt to the water, a part of it flows out. To this 

 must be added, that the water absorbed by an 

 animal texture when it enters the capillary tubes, 

 exerts, in virtue of its attraction for the tubes, a 

 certain pressure, by which the vessels are swoln 

 and enlarged. The particles of liquid in these 

 tubes undergo a counter-pressure from the elastic 

 parietes, by which pressure, when the attraction of 

 the liquid particles for the solids is diminished by 

 any new cause, the amount of expelled fluid is 

 increased. 



The organic parietes of the tubes, saturated with 

 water, are affected by alcohol just as a salt is when 

 dissolved in water. On the addition of alcohol, or 

 of another liquid, the water separates from the salt, 

 or from the parietes, or the parietes separate from 

 the water. 



If the animal tissue possessed as great an attrac- 

 tion for the newly-formed mixture as for the water 



