540 



BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



everything capable of further use within the domain of the 

 organic work of the body continues to be utilised to its 

 fullest extent ere it be allowed finally to escape as altogether 

 effete and noxious, we venture to assert that the tongue, 

 like the gastric glandulature, the liver, the pancreas, and 

 intestinal glandulature, discharges into the passing food 

 elements a great digestive ferment^ whose function is to 

 reduce chemico-physiologically certain of these elements 



FIG. 133. LONGITUDINAL VERTICAL SECTION OF THE TONGUE, LIP, ETC. 

 (From Kolliker and Arnold.) 



w, symphysis of the lower jaw ; d, incisor tooth ; //, hyoid bone ; g h, genio-hyoid 

 muscle ; g, genio-hyo-glossus spreading along the whole of the tongue ; tr, trans- 

 verse muscle ; Is, superior longitudinal muscle ; g /, lingual glands ; f, lymphoid 

 crypts ; e, epiglottis ; /, section of the lip and labial glands ; o, cut fibres of the 

 orbicularis oris ; Irn, levator menti. 



in preparation for the subsequent stages of digestion. 

 What that function is is as yet hidden, and, therefore, 

 waiting decipherment, after which it cannot be doubted 

 that an instrument of utility will have been gained by the 

 clinician and dietetist of very great intrinsic value and 

 scientific importance and adaptability. 



Viewed thus as a glandular receptacle, we may liken 

 the posterior two-thirds of the tongue to a sponge, into 

 which the residual pituitary discharge permeates from the 

 adjoining tonsillar bodies, one of whose functions is to 

 disseminate from their own external surfaces, in like 



