of the organs which move it, and of the organs which put it in relation with the surrounding world, or, in other words, enable it to move in harmony with influences from without, we must consider the means by which all this wonderful apparatus is kept in working order.

All work, as we have seen, implies waste. The work of the nervous system and that of the muscles, therefore, implies consumption either of their own substance, or of something else. And as the organism can make nothing, it must possess the means of obtaining from without that which it wants, and of throwing off from itself that which it wastes; and we have seen that, in the gross, it does these things. The body feeds, and it excretes. But we must now pass from the broad fact to the mechanism by which the fact is brought about. The organs which convert food into nutriment are the organs of alimentation; those which distribute nutriment all over the body are organs of circulation; those which get rid of the waste products are organs of excretion.

20. The organs of alimentation are the mouth, pharynx, gullet, stomach, and intestines, with their appendages. What they do is, first to receive and grind the food. They then act upon it with chemical agents, of which they possess a store which is renewed as fast as it is wasted; and in this way separate it into a fluid containing nutritious matters in solution or suspension, and innutritious dregs or faces.

21. A system of minute tubes, with very thin walls, termed capillaries, is distributed through the whole organism except the epidermis and its products, the epithelium, the cartilages, and the substance of the teeth. On all sides, these tubes pass into others, which are called arteries and veins; while these, becoming larger and larger, at length open into the heart, an organ which, as we have seen, is placed in the thorax. During life, these tubes and the chambers of the heart, with which they are connected, are all full of liquid, which is, for the most part, that red fluid with which we are all familiar as blood.

The walls of the heart are muscular, and contract rhythmically, or at regular intervals. By means of these contractions the blood which its cavities contain is driven

lower limbs, a controlling and governing power over them still remains in the body. For, if the soles of the disabled feet be tickled, though no sensation will reach the body, the legs will be jerked up, just as would be the case in an uninjured person. Again, if a series of galvanic shocks be sent along the spinal cord, the legs will perform movements even more powerful than those which the will could produce in an uninjured person. And, finally, if the injury is of such a nature that the cord is crushed or profoundly disorganized, all these phenomena cease; tickling the soles, or sending galvanic shocks along the spine, will produce no effect upon the legs.

By examinations of this kind carried still further, we arrive at the remarkable result that the brain is the seat of all sensation and mental action, and the primary source of all voluntary muscular contractions; while the spinal cord is capable of receiving an impression from the exterior, and converting it not only into a simple muscular contraction, but into a combination of such actions.

Thus, in general terms, we may say of the cerebrospinal nervous centres, that they have the power, when they receive certain impressions from without, of giving rise to simple or combined muscular contractions.

18. But you will further note that these impressions from without are of very different characters. Any part of the surface of the body may be so affected as to give rise to the sensations of contract, or of heat or cold; and any or every substance is able, under certain circumstances, to produce these' sensations. But only very few and comparatively small portions of the bodily framework are competent to be affected, in such a manner as to cause the sensations of taste or of smell, of sight or of hearing and only a few substances, or particular kinds of vibrations, are able so to affect those regions. These very limited parts of the body, which put us in relation with particular kinds of substances, or forms of force, are what are termed sensory organs. There are two such organs for sight, two for hearing, two for smell, and one, or more strictly speaking two, for taste.

19. And now that we have taken this brief view of the structure of the body, of the organs which support it,

of the organs which move it, and of the organs which put it in relation with the surrounding world, or, in other words, enable it to move in harmony with influences from without, we must consider the means by which all this wonderful apparatus is kept in working order.

All work, as we have seen, implies waste. The work of the nervous system and that of the muscles, therefore, implies consumption either of their own substance, or of something else. And as the organism can make nothing, it must possess the means of obtaining from without that which it wants, and of throwing off from itself that which it wastes; and we have seen that, in the gross, it does these things. The body feeds, and it excretes. But we must now pass from the broad fact to the mechanism by which the fact is brought about. The organs which convert food into nutriment are the organs of alimentation; those which distribute nutriment all over the body are organs of circulation; those which get rid of the waste products are organs of excretion.

20. The organs of alimentation are the mouth, pharynx, gullet, stomach, and intestines, with their appendages. What they do is, first to receive and grind the food. They then act upon it with chemical agents, of which they possess a store which is renewed as fast as it is wasted; and in this way separate it into a fluid containing nutritious matters in solution or suspension, and innutritious dregs or faces.

21. A system of minute tubes, with very thin walls, termed capillaries, is distributed through the whole organism except the epidermis and its products, the epithelium, the cartilages, and the substance of the teeth. On all sides, these tubes pass into others, which are called arteries and veins; while these, becoming larger and larger, at length open into the heart, an organ which, as we have seen, is placed in the thorax. During life, these tubes and the chambers of the heart, with which they are connected, are all full of liquid, which is, for the most part, that red fluid with which we are all familiar as blood.

The walls of the heart are muscular, and contract rhythmically, or at regular intervals. By means of these contractions the blood which its cavities contain is driven

in jets out of these cavities into the arteries, and thence into the capillaries, whence it returns by the veins back into the heart.

This is the circulation of the blood.

22. Now the fluid containing the dissolved or suspended nutritive matters which are the result of the process of digestion, traverses the very thin layer of soft and permeable tissue which separates the cavity of the alimentary canal from the cavities of the innumerable capillary vessels which lie in the walls of that canal, and so enters the blood, with which those capillaries are filled. Whirled away by the torrent of the circulation, the blood, thus charged with nutritive matter, enters the heart, and is thence propelled into the organs of the body. To these organs it supplies the nutriment with which it is charged; from them it takes their waste products, and, finally, returns by the veins, loaded with useless and injurious excretions, which sooner or later take the form of water, carbonic acid, and urea.

23. These excretionary matters are separated from the blood by the excretory organs, of which there are three— the skin, the lungs, and the kidneys.

Different as these organs may be in appearance, they are constructed upon one and the same principle. Each, in ultimate analysis, consists of a very thin sheet of tissue, like so much delicate blotting-paper, the one face of which is free, or lines a cavity in communication with the exterior of the body, while the other is in contact with the blood which has to be purified.

The excreted matters are, as it were, strained from the blood, through this delicate layer of filtering-tissue, and on to its free surface, whence they make their escape.

Each of these organs is especially concerned in the elimination of one of the chief waste products-water, carbonic acid, and urea--though it may at the same time be a means of escape for the others. Thus the lungs are especially busied in getting rid of carbonic acid, but at the same time they give off a good deal of water. duty of the kidneys is to excrete urea (together with other saline matters), but at the same time they pass away a large quantity of water and a trifling amount of carbonic acid; while the skin gives off much water, some amount

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of carbonic acid, and a certain quantity of saline matter, among which urea is, at all events, sometimes present.

24. Finally, the lungs play a double part, being not merely eliminators of waste, or excretionary, products, but importers into the economy of a substance which is not exactly either food or drink, but something as important as either, to wit, oxygen. It is oxygen which is the great sweeper of the economy. Introduced by the blood, into which it is absorbed, into all corners of the organism, it seizes upon those organic molecules which are disposable, lays hold of their elements, and combines with them into the new and simpler forms, carbonic acid, water, and urea.

The oxidation, or, in other words, the burning of these matters, gives rise to an amount of heat which is as efficient as a fire to raise the blood to a temperature of about 100°; and this hot fluid, incessantly renewed in all parts of the economy by the torrent of the circulation, warms the body, as a house is warmed by a hot-water apparatus.

25. But these alimentary, distributive or circulatory, excretory, and combustive processes would be worse than useless if they were not kept in strict proportion one to another. If the state of physiological balance is to be maintained, not only must the quantity of aliment taken be at least equivalent to the quantity of matter excreted; but that aliment must be distributed with due rapidity to the seat of each local waste. The circulatory system is the commissariat of the physiological army.

Again, if the body is to be maintained at a tolerably even temperature, while that of the air is constantly varying, the condition of the hot-water apparatus must be most carefully regulated.

In other words, a combining organ must be added to the organs already mentioned, and this is found in the nervous system, which not only possesses the function already described of enabling us to move our bodies and to know what is going on in the external world; but makes us aware of the need of food, enables us to discriminate nutritious from innutritious matters, and to exert the muscular actions needful for seizing, killing, and cooking; guides the hand to the mouth, and governs all the movements of the jaws and of the alimentary canal. By it,

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