i 9 4 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



with the quantity of materials ingested, the egesta and 

 ingesta, necessarily balancing each other in gross quantity, 

 although varying in state of chemical and physical com- 

 bination, the difference between them, in composition, 

 and dynamic qualities, being represented in terms of 

 the production and expenditure of vital energy and 

 the maintenance of life. 



As physiological terms, secretion and excretion apply, 

 in great measure, to the initial and terminal extremities 

 of the process of nutrition, and are due to, or consist 

 of, osmosis through gland, and every other form of cell 

 wall, of the nutritive plasma, on the one hand, and of 

 effete structural substance, on the other, hence the 

 necessity why they should exactly balance each other, in 

 order that the material status quo and the dynamic 

 equipoise should be maintained in undisturbed, and 

 finely adjusted proportions. 



It becomes evident from this that the initial departure 

 from health dates, or may date, back to the first indi- 

 cation of disturbance in the process of nutrition, or in 

 the phenomena of integration and disintegration, locally, 

 or generally ; or, in short, to derangement of metabolism 

 in its most intimate nature, as lying at the foundation 

 of all life, or vitality. 



Secretion and excretion, as physiological terms, applic- 

 able in a description of the metabolic phenomena of living 

 structure, seem to us to require modification, resetting, 

 or substitution thus, the final act, or phenomenon of 

 nutrition, consists in, or of, the secretion of plasma, by, 

 or rather, the secreting, or " hiding " of plasma in the 

 molecular interstices of the histological elements known 

 as the tissues. Living structure, we would, therefore, 

 regard as the culminating, or final, result of vital con- 

 struction, preceded by preparatory physical change, and 

 followed by destructive re-arrangement, or katabolism, of 

 its elements, in rhythmic order, and sequence its actual 

 component parts, for the time being, consisting of its 

 own proper, or intrinsic, chemico-physiological constituents, 

 or elements, in a state of stable, or loose, arrangement, 

 and cohesion, thus exemplifying in every degree, the rate 

 and manner of the vital physico-chemical circulation and 



