: 7 8 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



disintegrating tissues, where, uniting with that from kindred, 

 and neighbouring, inter-spaces, it finds its course facilitated 

 by the ultimate provision of a lymphatic vasculature, which 

 ultimately conducts it back to the blood stream to be finally 

 disposed of. Thus regarded, the processes of integration, 

 and disintegration, involved in the great process of nutri- 

 tion, are accomplished on lines altogether conducive to 

 atoxicity of nutritive material, and to unmixed removal of 

 effete residuum. 



Living cell and fibre, or process, thus manipulate, and 

 finally dispose of, the nutritive pabulum, or plasma, while 

 a series of inter-spaces and a developed vasculature suffice 

 for the conveyance of the effete material, resulting from 

 the disintegration of tissue, albeit, this vasculature is also 

 possessed of a series of intercalated glandular organisms 

 whereby its effete contents can be returned into the blood, 

 with their composition so altered that their toxic qualities 

 are no longer dangerous, or at least that they can be toler- 

 ated until removed by the provided excretory organs, 

 all which accentuates once more the truth of our thesis : 

 circulatio circulationum omnia circulatio. 



Nutrition, therefore, thus viewed, becomes a process of 

 chemico-mechanical preparation of alimentary materials, 

 of their circulation, along definite vessels, spaces, and inter- 

 spaces, to the tissues to be nourished, of their incorporation, 

 and assimilation, by these tissues, and of their subsequent 

 disintegration, and removal, through a series of succeeding 

 inter-spaces and spaces, into a specially provided vascula- 

 ture, for atoxic disposal in the blood circulation, from 

 which they came, or by direct excretion. It thus becomes 

 apparent that nutrition, as well as innervation, within a 

 dually innervated body, must be regarded as a dually 

 performed operation inasmuch as the nutritive plasma is 

 taken up and distributed, by the sympathetic, and systemic, 

 nervous systems, respectively, to their several "spheres of 

 influence," or innervation. It must, therefore, further be 

 recognised that nutrition is effected entirely through the 

 instrumentality of nervine dynamic agency, whether in the 

 sphere of sympathetic, or systemic, nerve influence, and 

 that the nutritive plasma is selected, either by sympathetic, 

 or systemic, nerve cells, located, respectively, in the endo- 



