2 PHYSIC 



were, projected into, and upon, their inner nature, and 

 working, and thereby revealing it may be, in novel and 

 unaccustomed positions and relief, the essence, the methods, 

 and manners of attack, progress, and result of the various 

 morbid entities in their contentions for supremacy with 

 the resources of the vis medicatrix nature. Figuratively 

 speaking, the systemic nervous system, being the citadel 

 and capital, so to speak, of the body corporate, and the 

 habitat of its presiding ego, is liable to attack by the 

 enemy disease through all the channels by which it the 

 central nervous system communicates with its environ- 

 ment, immediate and remote ; consequently it requires 

 these channels to be jealously guarded to prevent invasion, 

 and to be freely opened to expel the enemy, should it 

 unfortunately have gained an entrance to that citadel, and 

 should the forces of expulsion prove equal to the occasion. 

 In other words, a fluid or lymph is omnipresent through- 

 out the inter-spaces of the systemic nerve organisms, which 

 is liable to become the scene of disease when its substance 

 may become septic, chemically altered, or otherwise 

 affected in quality or quantity, thereby necessitating the 

 adoption of special medicinal and other measures to meet 

 the special circumstances, apart altogether, or almost 

 altogether, from the purely nervine aspect of the subject, 

 which requires to be dealt with on its own lines and very 

 much on its own merits. In view of the facts that the 

 cerebro-spinal fluid cannot be called a living, organic, or 

 nutritious fluid, but, on the contrary, a fluid, much of 

 which is destined for elimination purposes, very much on 

 the same lines and principle that the fluid secretion of the 

 kidneys is, and that the bladder, or vise us, containing it 

 consists or is made up of the whole inter- and intra-spatial 

 lymph areas surrounding and inter-penetrating the systemic 

 nervous system, central and peripheral. It requires, 

 therefore, that the eliminatory mechanisms making up or 

 composing that vise us, if we may call it so, should be 

 equal, but not more than equal, to the performance of 

 this vital function. Should this be quite normally accom- 

 plished, it must follow that the enclosed nervous system, 

 in all its parts, is at full liberty, all other essential condi- 

 tions being likewise normal, to perform unhindered its 



