258 PHYSIC 



curious, and geographically interesting pathological con- 

 dition. 



Along with goitre proper, we may classify a recently 

 described morbid condition, viz. lingual goitre, and claim 

 it as an example of ballooning of the upper extremity 

 of the thyro-glossal duct, and a conversion of the lumen 

 of the duct into a localised tumour, composed of the same 

 material as constitutes the matrix of the proper goitrous 

 tumour, a truly remarkable verification of the pathological 

 inferences here drawn from the views we entertain regard- 

 ing the pituitary excretory mechanism. 



Throughout the sequence of physiologico-pathological 

 events, of which this may be regarded as marking the 

 point of differentiation or connection, if we may call it so, 

 we still or continually see at work the moving principle 

 of circulation, albeit a supernumerary stage here in the long 

 series of physiological circulatory acts or events, initiated 

 or begun in the primary act of taking food, and ended, 

 in this instance, in the primary -pathological circulatory 

 act of exudation into the central cavity or intra-spaces of 

 the thyroid gland, the concluding stages of which patho- 

 logico-physiological sequence of events have yet to be 

 traced. 



Moreover, the colloid material, so often discovered 

 within the enlarged or goitrous thyroid gland, bears a 

 considerable resemblance to what we might expect to find 

 from its being the residual part of the material discharged 

 into the gland from the tongue through the re-opened 

 thyro-glossal duct after its imprisonment within the 

 dumping-ground, and consequent inspissation from the 

 separation of its more fluid parts from the more solid. 



The passive circulatory role of the pituitary material 

 resulting from the disposal of brain waste, which is dis- 

 charged from the gland of that name, is thus a very large 

 one, for have we not seen and traced it from its production 

 in the cerebrum, through the basi-sphenoid foramina, along 

 the spongy tissues of the uvula and tonsils into the 

 pharynx, and by structural continuity into the body of 

 the tongue, and thence through its papillary openings on 

 to the surface of that organ into the cavity of the mouth, 

 besides, under certain circumstances of patency, along the 



