6 PHYSIC 



two neurenteric tubes maintain an intimate material and 

 dynamic relationship, due to original continuity of histo- 

 logical elements, so do their peripheral aspects assume, in 

 the progress of mutual inter-mixture, inter-penetration, 

 and dovetailing, a condition almost of homogeneity, which 

 ensures a communal functional work as well as a dual 

 control and independent action. 



The formative results of independent histological exist- 

 ence and inter-dependent functional activities have far- 

 reaching physiological consequences in the regulation of 

 the general bodily health, and must necessarily determine, 

 to a large extent, the incidence and progress of a large 

 part of disease entities and neoplastic textural develop- 

 ments, facts which should, therefore, at all times be borne 

 in mind, and utilised as far as possible. 



The one nervous system gathers its nourishment 

 directly from the alimentary canal, and converts it into 

 protoplasm fit for its own peculiar metabolic purposes, 

 while the other has its peculiar protoplasm prepared and 

 stored for its immediate use in the cerebro-spinal canal, 

 each part of the original neurenteric canal, thus, continuing 

 to perform the common function of meeting the nutritive 

 wants of its peculiar nervous system and structural de- 

 pendencies, and, therefore, necessarily colouring the 

 peculiar, or essential, formative activities of that system, 

 as well as determining the formative results of their com- 

 bined or dual metabolism, besides the manner and char- 

 acter of their pathological formations and processes ; thus 

 the early progress of pathological formative processes may 

 so resemble the physiological as at first to elude observa- 

 tion, until the departures from the normal become so 

 unmistakably alien in character and structural results that 

 they compel recognition as fully established diseases. 



In pathological formative processes we see the physio- 

 logical manner of procedure, and results lead to a reversal 

 of the natural findings, as elicited by science, biological 

 and chemical, and discover that instead of the survival of 

 the fittest, it is the survival of the unfittest, with the 

 terminal effect of the extinction of the individual organ- 

 isms affected, and perhaps, when widely distributed in 

 incidence, the species implicated. In all such eventuali- 



