LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 45 



It is true, they take but small mouthfuls at a time : 

 but when it is considered, that these mouths are 

 millions in number, and that they are never shut, 

 but are constantly at work, night and day, you 

 will easily see that the entire body would speedily 

 be devoured, as it were, and carried away into the 

 blood, if there were no contrivance to rebuild the 

 body as fast as these little vessels eat it down and 

 carry it off. 



These vessels, which I have just introduced to 

 your notice, are the absorbents. 



1 have said, that the absorbents arise, by open 

 mouths*, from every point of the body. Now, if 

 this be true, it is clear that some of them must arise 

 from the internal surface of the bowels. And so 

 they do ; and those which do so, have an additio- 

 nal office to perform. Like that of all the other 

 absorbents, it is their office to decompose, liquefy, 

 and carry away the solid body into the blood ; but, 

 besides this, they have to absorb and carry into 

 the blood the nutritious parts of our food, called 

 chyle ; and from which chyle, the damage and dila- 

 pidation committed by the absorbents is to be 

 repaired. 



* This was the doctrine of the .brothers Hunter. 



