452 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



necessarily that of all the related circulations, primary 

 and secondary, neural and haemal, preceding that final 

 circulatory act of cerebral residuum disposal. Thirst, 

 therefore, primarily concerns the systemic nervous system, 

 and is a " cry," or warning, from that system particularly, 

 as it were, that the indispensable element of moisture 

 must at once be supplied by the responsible agencies if 

 the continuance of systemic nervine activity, and all that 

 that implies, is to continue without jar or friction, and 

 the unimpeded " work of life," organic and personal, to 

 go forward with comfort and pleasure. 



While, as we have said, the systemic nervature thus 

 gives the initial conscious warning deducible from the 

 first, it may be, somewhat vague sympathetico-systemic 

 local suggestions of the necessity of increased moisture 

 in the body generally to the sensorium, we must not 

 ignore the more general, and it may be still more vague, 

 suggestions due to general or local promptings of the 

 sympathetic nervature, pure and simple, in its supervision 

 of the organic work of nutrition, and all the related 

 circulatory phenomena and processes communicated along 

 its " rami communicants s" to the systemic nervature, 

 and thence to the central and directing consciousness and 

 responsible and responsive intelligence. 



This feeling or sensation called thirst is, therefore, 

 localised in the glosso-pharyngeal mucosa by the existence 

 of anatomical and histological continuity or sequence of 

 textural elements, uniting the central nervous system to 

 the buccal cavity, and the co-existence of physiological 

 conditions, which focus themselves in the mucosa of that 

 region, and which give an almost articulate expression 

 or language to the set of conditions regulating the supply 

 of the liquid element to the formative or organic 

 machinery of the body, which, if interpreted aright, 

 results in the production of the happiest consequences, 

 but which, if misinterpreted or wilfully misread, may 

 result in the most disastrous manner, and with the direst 

 consequences. 



The local association of the feeling of thirst, and the 

 sense of taste, implied in their respective anatomical dis- 

 tributions, indicates that the localisation of the former has 



