CENTRES OF XUTltlTION. 389 



XXi.— CP:NTRES of NUTIIITION.— (Plate IV.) 



By centres oi' nutrition 1 understand certain minute cellular 

 parts existing in the textures and organs. AVitli many of these 

 centres anatomists have been for some time familiar,* but with 

 a few exceptions have looked upon them as embryonic sti-uc- 

 tures.f I am inclined to believe in the general existence of 

 such centres, for a certain period at least, in all textures and 

 organs, and to this I wish to direct attention at present. 



The phenomena presented by these centres incline me to 

 regard them as destined to draw from the capillary vessels, or 

 from other sources, the materials of nutrition, and to distri- 

 bute them by develoj)ment to each organ or texture after its 

 kind. In this way they are to be considered centres of 

 germination ; and I have elsewhere named them germinal 

 spots — adopting the latter term from the Embryologists-j' 



The centre of nutrition with which we are most familiar, 

 is that from which the" whole organism derives its origin — 

 the germinal spot of the ovum. From this all the other 

 centres are derived, either mediately or immediately ; and in 

 directions, numbers, and arrangements, which induce the con- 

 figuration and structure of the being. As the entire organism 



* Tlie nuclei of the textures. 



f Mr. lJo\\Tnan, in liis Puikt on Muscle, Philosophical Transactions, 1840, 

 Part I. pajje 485. — Ci/cloj)a:ilia of Anaiomy and Physiolotpj, art. "Muscle." — 

 Dr. Martin Barry, in the Philosophical Transact ioyis, and most ex]>licitly in his 

 Paper " On the CoriiuscK's of the Blood," LS41, Part I. ]wge "itil), iMiragniph S3. 



t Trans. Iloy. Sac. E(l. 1842. " On the Secreting Structure, and the Ljiws 

 of its Functions. " 



