OP NUTRITION. #1 



apparatus required for the process, but it is only the apparatus. The function itself 13 

 purely a vital one. It presents us with a continual motion of a double nut are a con- 

 tinual attraction and decomposition of" material molecules. In the most simple ani- 

 mals, as the polypus, these processes go forward without any previous preparatory func 

 tion : the aiiimai imbibes, in a direct manner, similar molecules of matter to those of 

 which it is its formed from the surrounding 1 medium, and again exhales them in a man- 

 manner equally direct. In these there are no vessels destined for the purpose of circula- 

 tidn and nutrition, yet they present the phenomenon of irritability ; and on examina- 

 tion, with a microscope, their structure appears almost homogeneous, with the excep- 

 tion of globules entirely similar to those which are observed in the ganglial nerves of 

 the higher animals. As these are the chief mai'ks of internal organization which can 

 be detected in the very lowest of the animal kingdom, and as we must conceive that 

 the organization must be instrumental inthe nutrition and operations of animal bodies : 

 and as, moreover, we perceive that the perfection of the organization or material appa- 

 ratus is commensurate with, and has an evident relation to the extent of the vital opera- 

 tions which it performs, so it seems reasonable to suppose that this organization, 

 which is the only one to be detected in the very lowest of animals, is the chief 

 and indeed only instrument of the limited function which these animals perform ; and 

 that, as a similar, but more perfect organization presides over the nutritive function 

 of the highest animals, so this presides over that of the lowest, without the assistance 

 of the more complicated capillary apparatus assigned by some physiologists to the for- 

 mer; and if a distinct set of subordinate capillary vessels be not requisite to the nutri- 

 tive function in the one, we may allow that it takes place in the other, under the domi- 

 nion of the more perfect nervous organization to which we have assigned it, without 

 the existence of the more complicated capillary apparatus for which some contend. 



Concluding, therefore, that as the nervous globules demonstrable in the very lowest 

 animals are the only organization which they evince, that organization must have a de- 

 terminate object or function which it performs under the control of the vitality with 

 which it is allied, and which all animals possess; and that nutrition and irratibility are 

 the" only organic actions which these animals perform, so it must inevitably follow that 

 these actions result from the vital influence allied to the particular organization in ques- 

 tion, and that the nervous globules, constituting the only marks of internal organization 

 possessed by these animals, attract from the surrounding medium, in consequence of the 

 vitality with which they are allied, these molecules of matter corresponding 1 to those 

 forming the structure of the animal, which come within the sphere of their influence, and 

 retain them for an indefinite time, without either the medium of exhalent or absorbent 

 vessels. Now, as the same type, especially as respects the nutritive functions, may be 

 observed throughout the whole animal creation, and as we can trace nervous cords, 

 formed of globules similar to those already ascribed to the lower, and indeed to all ani- 

 mals, throughout almost the whole of their bodies, is it not reasonable to suppose that 

 similar globules exist in all the simple textures in a more diffused form that the glo- 

 bules constituting the organic or ganglial system of nerves become more disseminated 

 amongst the molecules of the textures in the course of their distribution with the ca- 

 pillary vessels, or of their more direct ramifications and terminations in the textures 

 themselves ? If this be granted and it scarcely can be denied, for it has been demon- 

 strated in different orders of animals, and as it has been shown that these nervous 

 globules are present, in a more or less organized form, throughout the whole animal 

 creation, it i-may consequently be inferred that the same function which we have as- 

 cribed to them in the lowest animals should be extended to them in the highest. This 

 is conformable to the laws characterizing the animal economy. 



As we have contended in another place, conformably with this opinion, that the gan- 

 glial nerves in some one or other of their forms of existence, are present throughout 

 every part of the" body, that they preside over digestion, nutrition, secretion, &c. and 

 are more nearly allied than any other texture with the vital influence which the body 

 exhibits, so we now conclude that the globules constituting the ganglial system, being 

 allied with vitality, and being distributed in different fonns of connexion to the various 

 textures of the body, exert, in consequence of the vital influence with which they are 

 endowed, a vital attraction on those molecules of matter which come within the sphere 

 of their influence ; that the force of this attraction, and the manner in which the ma- 

 terial molecules are arranged In order to form the different textures of the body, result 

 in a great measure from the influence proceeding from the form, the number, or the 

 condition of these globules in the textures which it is their office to perpetuate ; and 

 that the chief office of the digestive, the respiratory, the animalizing, and the circu- 

 lating processes, is to present the materials, whence the different textures are pre- 

 served, in a fit state for the exertion of this vital attraction ; and that the principal ope- 

 ration performed by the capillary vessels is to convey these materials within the spher; 



