VOL. XXXVI.} PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 413 



as one day, and the winter as one night; and their blood and liumours seem 

 to be fitted by nature, not only to bear, but even to require such long periods 

 of rest and action. And probably there is as little parity between the crasis 

 and constitution of the blood and humours of a healthy person, and of those 

 in soporous and cataleptic diseases, who are reported to have slept for weeks or 

 months without food of any kind : and therefore, where the crasis and con- 

 sistence of the blood and spirits are nearly the same, that is, caeteris paribus, 

 he who feeds, and is nourished most, will sleep longest, et e contra. 



2dly, The want of pus in the wound was probably owing to a want of recruit 

 of chyle in the blood; and the flabbiness and paleness of its lips, to a shrinking 

 of the parts for want of daily nourishment. 



3dly, The small quantity of urine was probably also owing to a want of 

 recruit of fluids from the primae viae : for these, in a healthy state, find their 

 way to the urinary passages very soon. The slight tincture of yellow, which 

 it had, must have been from the bile spilt in the abdomen, and filtrated through 

 the duplicature of the peritoneum, and bottom of the bladder: for it could not 

 be supposed to derive its colour from the blood, into which no bile could now 

 enter by the common way. 



4thly, The want of saliva, and the silky dryness of the tongue, seem to 

 have been owing to the same cause, a want of recruit of fluids in the blood, 

 and a loss of so much of them as fell into the abdomen. 



It may reasonably be objected here, that the ductus hepaticus would carry 

 a sufficiency of bile, for the uses of the animal economy, into the cavity of the 

 intestines, though none came by the ductus cysticus; and nature seems to have 

 provided the ductus hepaticus for this purpose, that if any obstruction or defect 

 should happen in any of these secretory channels, the secretion and excretion, 

 might go on for the benefit of the economy, in the other: as nature has pro- 

 vided two kidneys, and double organs of sense, for the same reason. But the 

 effect will not be the same in a wound, which is the reverse of an obstruction; 

 because by a perpetual evacuation through it, such a revulsion and derivation is 

 made, as drains and desiccates all the neighbouring parts, and either lessens or 

 entirely frustrates the secretion and excretion by them: and this we find to 

 be true, where the secretory organs and ducts concerned in the different secre- 

 tions, lie at a great distance from each other; as in the diabetes we generally 

 see a very great desiccation of the salival glands, a defect of saliva, and a per- 

 petual thirst; and sweating and looseness lessen the secretion by urine; an 

 issue drains and emaciates the neighbouring parts; and it is mechanically de- 

 monstrated by Bellini, that the flux of the blood, and of all the humours, will 

 be most and strongest towards the part where the resistance is taken off; as in 



