108 ANALYTIC SECT. XII. 
drink with his orbicularis oris contracted; and no 
fluid could ever enter their tubes even by capillary 
attraction. If the absorbents possess a contrac- 
tile power only, they would be entirely useless 
as active conducting canals, 
ccLiv. But the absorbents are aubjech 4 to the 
common laws of irritability as in the other organs. 
cctv. When the vital force is. greatly dimi- 
nished by excessive hemorrhage, anasarca of the 
extremities follows, from the reduced expansibility 
of their small absorbents; and this is an excellent 
example of what contractibility would effect 
without expansibility. : 
cctv. In hemiplegia, the reducement of the 
vital force necessarily diminishes the expansibility 
of all the blood-vessels on the paralytic side; but 
this occurs unequally ; for owing to the superior 
density of the arterial coats, they do not, for some 
time, reach their maximum of morbid contrac- 
tion. But the thin delicate coats of the absorbents 
contract more speedily, and the lymph effused 
by the exhalants is often not pumped up quick 
enough by the lymphatic absorbents, Anasarca is 
then the consequence, and will continue to exist 
till the expansibility of the arteries, veins, and 
absorbents, arrive at a sort of paralytic equali- 
zation. 
ccLvil. I have seen the anasarca of a paralytic 
limb removed by restoring its vital force; but 
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