NUTRITION, INNERVATION, ETC. 569 



finally evolved haemal and systemic nervine circulations and 

 nutrition, which are the last to appear of the three systems 

 of circulation and nutrition the three systems appearing 

 at three well-marked epochs of developmental progress in 

 the growth of the human organism, and synchronising, 

 first, with the coalescence of the sperm and germ elements 

 of the ovum ; second, the earliest mitosis of the uni-cell 

 ovum ; and, third, the primary arrangement of these 

 mitotic multi-cell elementary textures into definite organic 

 or histological tissues and organs for definite physiological 

 or systemic purposes. Thus, from the most elementary 

 to the most complex tissue conditions characterising the 

 development and evolution of the human body, nutrition 

 is effected on the definite lines of circulation and innerva- 

 tion, inspired by life or vital energy, which suffice both to 

 initiate and maintain it so long as the necessary material 

 and dynamic conditions are supplied and the requisite 

 intra-organismal or physiological health is maintained. 



These three methods of nutrition, although appearing 

 at definite developmental epochs, continue to take part in 

 the accomplishment of the one general work ; that general 

 nutritional work being intra-cellular, inter-cellular, and 

 systemic in its manner and method, and requiring for 

 its accomplishment the simultaneous operation of the 

 three. Three planes of formative or vital activity are 

 herein represented, viz. the molecular or intra-cellular, 

 the granule-homogeneous or fibro-inter-cellular, and the 

 corpuscular or haemo-vascular ; but to these three planes 

 has to be added the highest plane of all, the nutritive and 

 circulatory phenomena included in the tout ensemble of the 

 vital work of the human body, the specifically nervine or 

 neuro-psychic. 



The nutritive plasma, at the stage of embryonic life 

 when the first three methods of nutrition are combined 

 for the general purpose of growth and differentiation 

 of component structures, is conveyed to the embryonic 

 organism, fully prepared by the maternal organism, and 

 requiring only to be assimilated by its formative 

 economy ; at the stage of post-natal development, 

 however, when the infant organism has to prepare its 

 ingesta for absorption into its haemal circulation, and 



