268 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



retrospective, results, of brain waste, and the pristine 

 elements of prospective nutrition. 



We are warranted, in the meantime, we think, in 

 stating that not only have we to deal here with a digestive 

 phenomenon, but with an excretionary process of vital 

 importance in the economy of cerebration, with all that is 

 dependent upon the maintenance of the physiological con- 

 dition of the central nervous system. All this, of course, 

 being yet heterodox, we can only, tentatively, call the 

 attention of those who are in any way interested in, or 

 practically engaged with problems related to, the subject, 

 hoping that its possible scientific, and practical, bearings, 

 will in time be fully realised. 



The oesophagus (see Figs. 112, 113) is, in function> 

 and structure, so far as yet discovered, vehicular, mainly, 

 that is to say, it is a tube, for the conveyance from the 

 pharynx to the stomach, of the masticated, insalivated and 

 pituitarised, food, although in certain physiological, and 

 pathological, pouched conditions, opportunities are afforded 

 for the elements of the food, to undergo chemico-physio- 

 logical changes, of a character dependent on pre-gastric 

 digestion. 



The stomach (see Fig. 113), on the other hand, is an 

 adaptation of the lumen of the enteric canal to the require- 

 ments of a digestive viscus, which has given a specific 

 term, for use by the " man in the street," as well as the 

 most learned scientist, and which is in greater daily use> 

 than almost any other selected term that could be quoted. 

 It is the first of the long series of digestive viscera, 

 constituting the abdominal development of the intestinal 

 canal, and so important in the economy of the digestive 

 process, that it performs its functions with "closed doors," 

 so to speak, being valved at both ends, and endowed with 

 a powerful musculature, which is innervated by both the 

 systemic and sympathetic nervatures, hence it may be 

 regarded as the most actively functional of all the divisions 

 of the intestinal canal. Its manner and method of work- 

 ing, have been more exhaustively studied, than have been 

 those of any other intestinal division, but it cannot be said, 

 with any degree of truth that the last word has yet been 

 spoken, or written, on the subject ; on the contrary, 



