1 6 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



vehicular agencies of the central nervous system, or sen- 

 sorium, and sympathetic nervous system alike. This fluid 

 begins to be apparent on the formation of the chyle, and 

 continues to be elaborated, taken from, and added to, as 

 the elements of nutrition are elaborated, metabolised, 

 katabolised, and removed from the system as altogether 

 effete, noxious, and beyond the reach of further nutritive 

 service. Throughout all the modifications undergone by 

 this fluid, or lymph, a sequence of changes takes place, 

 determined by the exigencies of nutrition, with the associ- 

 ated and necessitated processes of secretion and excretion, 

 and carried out in normal health with unerring chemico- 

 physiological precision, complete systemic hygiene, and 

 non-morbid results. 



This fluid, therefore, circulates within and without the 

 permanent organised protoplasmic elements and structures 

 by virtue of inter-spaces, canals, and vessels, sometimes 

 cystic chambers, for passive collection, being provided 

 besides, and affords a solid medium in which many of 

 the chemico-physiological reactions of nutrition take place. 

 Moreover, it is not only a solvent medium, but a mechani- 

 cal washing agency, in which the katabolic residuum of 

 tissue waste is detached and removed and finally floated 

 out of the system, and a great antiseptic fluid, in which 

 the spores and developed organisms of microbic agencies 

 are effectually dealt with by natural hygiene under the 

 control of the vis medicatrix naturae, and disease thereby 

 averted. 



We thus see in the constant and comparatively large 

 proportion of chloride of sodium universally present in 

 lymph and lymphoid fluids that more than accident deter- 

 mines the circumstance, and that it is, in fact, none other 

 than a great natural provision for the maintenance of 

 structural sweetness and systemic non-autotoxis, whereby 

 the thousand and one noxious agencies entering it are 

 dissolved, neutralised, or fixed, in non-katodynamic order, 

 suitable for safe lodgment in, or conveyance out of, the 

 system. 



The elements of protoplasm are selected from the raw 

 materials of the food, licked into organic shape by the 

 formative vital energies of the various structural elements 



