CYSTIC GROWTHS 45 



of the body we must, therefore, find, as a result of the 

 universality of circulation, that the occurrence of stasis, 

 or arrest of the continuously moving materials of which 

 they are composed and by which they are inter-penetrated, 

 is the starting point of structural change, and that the 

 new formative procedure so initiated is finally dependent 

 on the survival of the fittest amongst the struggling 

 physiological and pathological factors, material and 

 dynamic, the new growth or neoplasm so begotten affect- 

 ing the health and the length of life of its host, in 

 accordance with its specific character as to anatomical 

 position and relationship to innocence or malignancy, and 

 to the resisting powers of that host. 



Circulatory stasis, or arrest, from the pathological point 

 of view, may be regarded as proceeding primarily from a 

 change in the physical consistence of the material circulat- 

 ing, due, it may be, to the effect of material or dynamic 

 causes, or the occurrence of obstructive conditions in the 

 circulating vasculature or tissue inter-spaces, through which 

 the phenomena of nutrition are effected and the stages of for- 

 mative activity determined and regulated, morphologically 

 and functionally, and both physiologically and pathologically. 



A body, mobile in mass and in molecule, and continually 

 changing under the influence of vital and other energies 

 its physical and chemical constituents in certain vitally 

 determined directions, must necessarily be subject to the 

 disturbing influences, material and dynamic, flowing out 

 of its subjectivity to the laws of matter and energy, and, 

 consequently, must be liable to the modifying influence 

 of every change, material and dynamic, which impresses 

 it, and as these changes are innumerable, and to be "met 

 with at every turn," a special prohibitive and rectifying 

 force is self-produced in every organism, by which the 

 disastrous effects of these changes are neutralised, called 

 the vis medicatrix nature. 



This power it is which renders the continuance of life 

 possible to the extent that it is, and which, under patho- 

 logical conditions, enables the affected organism to throw 

 them off and to renew the status quo ante, or the reign 

 of physiological law and order ; a study, therefore, of this 

 power, and the manners and methods of its beneficent 



