NUTKITION. 113 



there is a minute artery to deposit a living atom, there is 

 an absorbent ready to carry it away when it shall have fin- 

 ished its life and died. 



245. Dr. Edward Johnson, in his interesting letters on 

 "Life, Health, and Disease," thus graphically describes 

 these vessels : " There is arising from every point of your 

 body a countless number of little vessels, actively engaged in 

 the pleasant task of eating you up. They may be compared 

 to a swarming host of long, delicate, and slender leeches, 

 attached, by their innumerable mouths, to every point of 

 your fabric, and having their bodies gradually and progres- 

 sively united together, until they all terminate in one tail, 

 which tail perforates the side of one of the veins at the 

 bottom of the neck, on the left side; so that whatever is 

 taken in at their mouths is all emptied, ^by the other ex- 

 tremity, into that vein, where it becomes mixed with the 

 blood." 



CHAPTER V. 



Action of the Nutrients and Absorbents. Feeding Sheep on Mad- 

 der colors Bones. Balance of Nutrition and Absorption. In 

 Youth, Nutrition, and in Old Age, Absorption prevails. Both 

 more active in the Laborer. Laborer should eat more Food. 

 Parts that are used more' nourished. Wens and Swellings. 

 Produced by excessive Action of Arteries, and removed by greater 

 Action of Absorbents. 



246. THE arteries* bring the blood, and deposit the new 

 particles of flesh, while the veins and absorbents take and 

 carry away the old particles. These two sjstems are con- 

 stantly at work, antagonizing each, other. One set pulls 

 down the old fabric, taking i| away atom by atom ; at the 

 same time, the other set rebuilds the' fabrip anew, and 

 replaces the old and the dead with new and living portions. 

 In this manner, we are undergoing a perpetual change; 

 and we are not precisely the same to-day as we were 

 10* 



