Principles of organic life : showing that the gases are of equal importances with the solids and fluids in the laws which regulate the progress of matter from the lowest inorganic to the highest organic conditions / [Benjamin Ridge].
- Ridge, Benjamin
- Date:
- 1875
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Principles of organic life : showing that the gases are of equal importances with the solids and fluids in the laws which regulate the progress of matter from the lowest inorganic to the highest organic conditions / [Benjamin Ridge]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
83/534 (page 21)
![secretion. Now, these again are large users of fluid elements, but they yield something towards the eco- nomy of life; for what they make the system uses again. Here we see the self-supporting power of the system somewhat displayed. Their secretions tell up enormously to the fluid constituents which the body requires; their basic elements are the salts in various pro])ortions derived from the blood, but the percentage of water in which they are contained is absolutely fabulous. Here, again, physiology ascribes this also to the blood. On the very face of it, it seems an utter impossibility ; for, if we ask the question. Can the blood or its serum bear such a loss, combined with so many pounds in quantity supposed to be supplied from it for the lubrication of the fibres of muscles and their divisional fasciaj ? In other words. Can the blood stand such a downright robbery ?—Simple common sense would at once say that it was impossible; and I will give a reason that it is so. In all the arrange- ments where arteries go to organs, such as glands, and these organs perform their double duty—first for themselves and their own integrity, and secondly to make another element—the veins are larger and often allow a double set, as if they actually carried away half as much again and often double the quantity of blood to what is sent by the arteries to these organs. Now this is a curious fact, because the veins them- selves not only receive the residual blood from the arteries, but act as absorbents for any excess of fluid lying along their course ; this excess not coming from tlie arteries. If, then, fluids so abound in the system that they require these channels for excess, where are they delivered, and why should this excess exist at](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2807256x_0083.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
