EXTRACT XLVI. 



ON THE EVACUATION OR DISCHARGE OF COLLOIDAL 

 MATERIAL THROUGH NARROW EXCRETORY CHAN- 

 NELS, AS CONTRASTED WITH THAT OF MORE FLUID 

 OR SEROUS MATERIALS. 



GENERALLY speaking, the physical consistency of the 

 residual material due to bodily waste, being serous or 

 sub-serous, is evacuated through narrow channels secured 

 by muscular sphincters or structures acting in a sphincteroid 

 manner with the greatest success and comfort ; if, how- 

 ever, the consistency of the fluid be above that of serum, 

 the narrow channels and the previously successful elimin- 

 atory machinery become clogged, and the usually increasing 

 colloidal condition gives rise in two directions to a patho- 

 genic state of affairs which may, and does, frequently lead 

 to the production of definite states of disease. These two 

 directions lead respectively to, on the one hand, ballooning 

 of channels by the accumulating non-eliminated colloidal 

 material, and, it may be, the formation of "cystic" or 

 "new" growth partaking of the character of the original 

 colloid and the nature of the histological elements of the 

 excretory mechanism involved, and, on the other, to 

 shrinking and ultimate obliteration of the inter-spatial 

 lumina of the channelled textural elements, and hardening 

 or sclerosis, with atrophy and disappearance of the struc- 

 tures involved. The recto-anal textures illustrate both 

 these varieties of pathological development, and afford 

 examples in the two directions mentioned of the working 

 out of pathological problems by pathogenic factors, deter- 

 mined by the property of physical consistency of circulating 



