546 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



pathological " fur," as seen on the tongue, alike attest a 

 departure from the normal disposition of that " fur " in 

 anatomical situation and manner of arrangement as to 

 colour, depth, and consistency, usually dependent upon 

 the nature of the diseased condition on account of which 

 they occur, and the profundity of the local disturbances ; 

 thus a faint disturbance of the digestive system may only 

 be attended by the merest and most ephemeral formation 

 of " fur," while a suppurative tonsillitis, or quinsy, may 

 develop the deepest, and most lasting, of almost mem- 

 branous furs each, however, being alike the consequence 

 of a more or less pronounced stasis of the cerebro- 

 excretory circulation, and a more or less delayed renewal 

 of the final excretory process, due, amongst other causes, 

 to blockage of papillary orifices and inspissation of the 

 excretory material, from osmotic escape of its more fluid 

 parts, through the textural elements of its enclosing and 

 related matrix and superimposed mucosa. 



Should these views become a part of our orthodox 

 beliefs, it will again prove that our forefathers, in the art 

 of medicine, based at least one more of their methods of 

 eliciting diagnostic information and indications of treatment 

 on a strictly scientific, if empirical, foundation, and that 

 they were possessed in an eminent or high degree of that 

 professional acumen in reading pathological signs which 

 we are too apt to associate with modern men and times. 



Since writing the above, we have been struck with the 

 ideas that excretion from the surface of the tongue of its 

 pituitary residuum must be greatly aided by the continual 

 conscious and unconscious " suction " to which it is 

 subjected in the thousand and one movements in which it 

 takes a part from the beginning to the end of life, the 

 papillary cups and their communicating ductules being 

 emptied and replenished more or less by every such exer- 

 cise ; and that the functional and material value of the 

 excreted material in the process of digestion is certain to 

 be discovered to be of the highest order ; a very slight 

 consideration of the circumstances involved in the admix- 

 ture of alimentary materials and glosso-pharyngeal mucus 

 at once suggesting the accomplishment of profound 

 digestive changes in the elements of food, liquid and solid. 



