242 Mayow 



seems to be nothing else than an affusion of blood, 

 which, when coagulated, adheres to these vesicles, 

 for, while the mass of the blood wanders like the 

 Mseander among these channels and glides past them 

 in its placid stream, the thicker particles are deposited 

 on account of the slackness of the motion, and adhere 

 to the sides of the vesicles, and yet, if the blood 

 circulate more quickly, they are carried away with its 

 impetuous rush, and hence it is that in the heat of 

 fever and in the more violent exercises, the muscular 

 parts are despoiled and become lean. 



As to the use of the fleshy parenchyma, it is 

 probable that the aforesaid vesicles, along with the 

 sanguineous sediment adjoined to them, act as a filter, 

 by which the motive particles are separated from the 

 mass of the blood, as we have indicated above. And 

 it tells in favour of this, that the parenchyma of the 

 flesh turgid with blood is compressed by the constric- 

 tion of the contracted muscle and by the natural subsid- 

 ence of the parts ; whence it comes about that the motive 

 particles are driven, as it were, by a powerful squeeze 

 into the motor parts to carry on the function of motion. 



As to the nature of the motive particles separated 

 from the mass of the blood, it is our opinion that they 

 are of a saline-sulphureous quality. I think, namely, 

 that sulphureous and saline particles brought to the 

 highest volatility in the mass of the blood by its 

 continuous fermentation in the manner elsewhere 

 described, and most intimately joined together, are 

 separated from the blood by the action of the 

 muscular parenchyma and stored up in the motor 

 parts for setting up their contraction. For we may 

 note that no small loss of fat takes place in the 

 more violent exercises, and that it almost wholly 

 disappears in long-continued hard work ; while yet, 



