282 PHYSIC 



sequence determine the circulation of the blood absolutely, 

 and, at the same time, materio-dynamicaHy inspire, so 

 to speak, the machinery of all the other circulations, simple 

 and complex, subservient to the necessities of the organic 

 life of the body. Any failure of the heart's action is, 

 therefore, attended with general slowing of rate and 

 lowering of tone of the whole circulatory system, and an 

 increased tendency to stasis at its linking up junctures, 

 capillary areas, and terminal metabolic or interstitial dis- 

 tribution. 



Besides these forms of circulatory stasis, which are 

 mostly illustrative of obstruction within the area inner- 

 vated by the sympathetic nervature, and concern the 

 circulation of the blood and the haemal lymph principally, 

 are a great variety of stases within the systemic nervous 

 system itself, and the structures innervated by that system. 

 Thus, besides hydrocephalus, stasis of, or obstruction to, 

 the outflow or exit of neural or cerebro-spinal lymph, is 

 attended by adenoids in the nasal passages and polypus 

 amongst others, from obstructed olfactory excretion 

 acromegaly, from obstructed pituitary outflow, pendulous 

 tumour of buttocks or false tail, from obstructed coccygeal 

 exit and various superficial tumours of the skin, from ob- 

 structed discharges of sweat and other material, including, 

 in our opinion, retention of the sub-arachnoid fluid in 

 cases of wens of the scalp. 



This is a large array of obstructive ailments, but it 

 may be said, with all truth, that it constitutes but a very 

 small proportion of the total diseases traceable to stasis 

 of circulation. 



