135 



diseases followed by change of structure. As growth is progressive 

 from the state of the ovum to adult age, so, during the whole of 

 this period, the concurrence of disposition and quantum of the 

 spirit, of spiritual elements, and of organic particles, operates. The 

 ratio of growth is settled by this concurrence, or by the agents 

 severally or collectively engaged in it. The varieties of growth are 

 dependent upon the modification of this concurrence, the share of 

 the absorbent function being included in that which has been 

 designated the " disposition of the spirit," considered in its integrity 

 in regard to the organic particles* 



21. Life, producing the structures by its affinity, &c. holds 

 the same affinity as long as it is preserved ; and life, inhering in 

 those materials which it has aggregated, would without some further 

 process of causation maintain the coherence of the identical par- 

 ticles which it had once laid down. We are now conducted to a 

 more particular consideration of the force of the absorbent Junction. 



22. The question first to be settled is, whether any such waste, 

 any such perpetual absorption, as that which has been current 

 among physiologists, actually takes place 7 ? The admitted proofs of 

 the absorption of the solids are as follow: 1st, the osseous particles 

 being dyed with a colouring matter received in the way of food by 

 an animal will be found, it is said, to have been removed in a certain 

 time after this peculiar food has been discontinued ; 2nd, the bulk 

 of the solids is reduced by fever, and the pressure of morbid growths 

 upon the bones will make them disappear. The first has been con- 

 sidered as furnishing the strongest proof of this perpetual absorption 

 of the impacted solid particles; let us therefore examine it. 



23. As the osseous particles are made red by madder, and as 

 this redness afterwards disappears, it has .been inferred that the 

 osseous particles are also removed, in order to account for the dis- 

 appearance of the redness. This, it must be confessed, is very close 

 reasoning. However, close as it is, it does not appear quite impossi- 

 ble but that the bony particles might remain when the colouring 

 matter has disappeared; for wherever the colouring matter can be 

 deposited, there the fluids which are its medium must penetrate. 

 As long as the animal is fed with madder, the bones will continue 

 to be tinged by it: but when this feeding is discontinued, then the 

 dye is very naturally washed off by the fluids which are constantly 

 permeating the places where they before reached, in order to impart 

 the colouring matter. There is no great difficulty supposed in this 

 process. 



24. But in less than a week after this peculiar feeding is left off 

 the osseous particles will have assumed their natural colour: hence 

 it follows, if the cessation of the colour is produced by the removal 

 of the bony particles, that all the osseous matter existing in the 

 body, at any given time is removed in a few days. Now as the 

 bones are not better supplied with absorbents, or certainly more 

 liable to absorption, than other parts ; it follows, further, that not 

 only all the bones, but the whole mass of solids, are removed and 



