3 8 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



capable of floating the disengaged materials from the entire 

 central and peripheral nervous system, necessitates the 

 existence of free and ample excretory facilities for the 

 maintenance of neural hygiene, and these we find mainly 

 provided as follows, viz. : The olfactory tracts, bulbs, 

 nerves, and nasal mucosa, the pituitary gland, and tonsillo- 

 glosso-pharyngeal mucosa, the filum terminate of the cord, 

 with coccygeal gland, and related extra- and intra-anal 

 exits, "modified sweat glands," ductiform exits, and rectal 

 mucosa, together with the entire system of cutaneous 

 sweat glands and related sympathetic neuro-lymph exits 

 wherever existent in texture and viscus. 



These great circulations, with their relating subsidiary 

 circulations, and the many visceral and organismal circula- 

 tions, are engaged in conveying plastic and fluid materials 

 along well-defined vascular channels or inter-spaces, and 

 comprise the circulatory procedure, supplemented by the 

 aerial circulation, which distributes to the various textural 

 elements of the body the plasmic materials on which they 

 live, and which they metabolise by another series of circu- 

 lations extending to the final one of atomic, or molecular, 

 dimensions, in which the vital act of tissue integration 

 takes place, after which, by an inverse circulatory pro- 

 cedure, the process of disintegration is begun, and con- 

 tinues until the tissue elements are again devitalised and 

 restored to the outer world of inorganic matter by the 

 haemal lymph circulation and its attached excretory 

 mechanisms, the bowel, the kidneys, the skin, and the 

 lungs. There are thus two series of excretory organisms 

 at work in the economy of elimination, respectively 

 belonging to the cerebro-spinal and blood circulations, 

 with exit orifices and mechanisms of a more or less com- 

 plex and specific character, to enable them to perform their 

 individual functions. We are thus warranted in claiming 

 the truth of the expression : circulatio circulationum 

 omnia circulatio! 



Speaking generally, circulation of one kind or another 

 must be regarded as originally all-pervading, and as the 

 means by which the great processes of digestion, absorp- 

 tion, sanguification, assimilation, nutrition, disintegration, 

 secretion, and excretion are rendered possible, in con- 



