166 ABSORBENT SYSTEM. 



Properties of the Absorbent System. 



Q. What properties of texture do the absorbents and 

 glands possess? 



*fl. Extensibility and contractility. 



Q. What vital properties attach to them? 



*#. But little animal sensibility in health, but consider- 

 able in diseases. They have no animal contractility. Ob- 

 viously, they have organic sensibility and insensible or- 

 ganic contractility. 



Q. What remarkable phenomenon attends these two 

 last named properties in the absorbents? 



/?. The organic sensibility and the insensible organic 

 contractility continue some hours after death in some bo- 

 dies; or in other words, absorption continues after death. 



Q. How does the organic sensibility of the absorbents 

 differ from that of the glands? 



#. In the absorbents it is in relation to many fluids; 

 glands admit but one. 



Q. What difference appears between the lining mem- 

 brane of the absorbents and that of the veins? 



#. The greater susceptibility of the first to inflamma- 

 tion. 



Q. What is a common consequence of inflammation of 

 the lymphatic glands? 



t/2. Scirrhus hardness much more frequently follows 

 inflammation in them than in other structures. 



Q. What shows a difference between the vital proper- 

 ties of the absorbents and lymphatic glands? 



Jl. The fact that the glands are so frequently inflamed 

 by matters which do not affect the absorbents. 



