■202 WALTER KIDD, ESQ., M.D., P.Z.S., 



profound effect upon the general health prodnced by ablation 

 or disease of the thyroid body. 



Not more than a few simple illnstrations of design in this 

 highest of life-fcn-ms can be given here. The arrangement of 

 the skeleton of man, tubular construction of the shafts and 

 mechanical disposition of cancellous tissue in the ends of the 

 long bones, — the remarkable quahties of bone as a tissue, — 

 the positions and actions of the two hundred and sixty pairs 

 •of voluntary muscles, — the protection by position of the large 

 arteries, veins and nerves, and of the thoracic duct — the 

 protection by strong bone of the brain and spinal cord — 

 the delicate Avater-bed on which they lie — the spaces in 

 the interior of the brain with vascular fringes, in which 

 heightened blood-supply can occur — the various types of 

 joints — the sudoriparous glands, numbering between two 

 and three millions — the specialized functions of all the 

 organs, with a wealth of anatomical and physiological facts 

 which it were wearisome to enumerate, constitute a Aveighty 

 mass of a priori evidence for design and contrivance. 



Three more latter-day discoveries pointing to minute 

 teleology may be mentioned. 'Jlie course by Avhich the 

 lymph is collected from the different tissues of tlie body 

 and conveyed by branching vessels into the thoracic duct 

 (which itself lies in about the most carefully protected situa- 

 tion which can be conceived), and so into the general venous 

 current at the exactly appropriate spot, is wonderfid indeed. 

 But more recent investigations into the peripheral cii-culation 

 of the lymph show contrivances still more minute. In the 

 pleura, pericardium and peritoneum, which are open lymph- 

 spaces, the lymph is drawn by suction into the neighbouring 

 lymph vessels, through the constant motion in the peri- 

 cardium of its contained heart, and in the pleura and 

 peritoneum by the muscular action of the diaphragm m 

 respiration. [Similarly, as shown by Ludwig, the relaxation 

 and elongation of the voluntary nuiscles and their contrac- 

 tion and shoi-tening which takes place during exercise, on 

 the one hand draw by suction into the lymph-spaces which 

 exist in the faciro of each muscle the plasma from the nuiscular 

 tissue, and on the other drive it out of these lymph-spaces 

 inT(j the surrounding lymph-vessels, which are sup})lied witli 

 valves, at the same time draAving in an increiised blood 

 •supply. And in the arteries a similar pumping of the lympli 

 from the spaces betAveen the intinia and media takes place 

 by reason of the alternate expansion and contraction of 



