THE SOURCES OP THE HEART'S ENERGY. 441 



chapter. Paradoxical as the statement may seem, we were led 

 to conclude that the minute granules referred to on page 433 

 were actually supplied to the heart through the intermediary 

 of leucocytes. These cells were found to migrate from the liver 

 (also through the hepatic veins) to the inferior vena cava, where 

 they meet the adrenal secretion and proceed with it to the 

 right ventricle. The evidence seems incontrovertible. The 

 subject is so far-reaching, however, that it had to be consid- 

 ered separately. We will, for the present only, refer to these 

 granules as "granules ft" (Ehrlich). We now have, it seems 

 to us, the elements necessary to account for the functional 

 phenomena witnessed, namely: 



1. The adrenal secretion, to contract the right auricle and 

 ventricle and thus insure the penetration of the Thebesian Mood into 

 the cardiac walls (which contraction venous blood or its con- 

 tained granules fi would not cause). 



2. The granules fi, to account for the unusual and continuous 

 production of energy which the heart converts into work. 



3. A continuous supply of oxidizing substance via the coro- 

 nary arteries to insure the combustion processes through which this 

 energy is liberated. 



The annexed colored plate shows the manner in which the 

 adrenal secretion and the granules (3 simultaneously reach the 

 right auricle. 



We can now understand why plugging of the coronary 

 arteries should, as stated by Porter, arrest cardiac action. Re- 

 ferring to the effects of embolism and thrombosis of these 

 arteries, this investigator also says: "That part of the heart- 

 wall supplied by the stopped artery speedily decays. The 

 bloodless area is of a dull-white color, often faintly tinged with 

 yellow; rarely it is red, being stained by hcenwglo'bin from the 

 neighboring capillaries. The cross-section is coarsely granular. 

 The nuclei of the muscle-cells have lost their power of staining. 

 The muscle-cells are dead, and connective tissue soon replaces 

 them. This loss of function and rapid decay of cardiac tissue 

 would not take place did anastomosis permit the establishment 

 of collateral circulation between the artery going to the part 

 and neighboring arteries. . . . The objection that one of 

 the coronary arteries can be injected from another, and that, 



