Licence: In copyright
Credit: On means for the prolongation of life. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
39/230 (page 27)
![widened, more blood flows into the capillaries and the lymph spaces ; more food and more oxygen are carried to the tissues, and at the same time the waste products are removed. This has often been demonstrated on the muscle whose regular contraction causes increase in size and strength ; it is, however, not only the mus- cular fibre which gains, but the nutritive vessels and absorbents themselves gain equally much by being kept in action. The increased afflux of blood which is caused by the action of the muscle forces the small vessels to work, and to conduct more blood to the organs and tissues, and thus their coats are maintained in a sound condition. At the same time the lymphatics are kept in action by the removal of the increased amount of fluid from the lymph spaces, contain- ing the used-up material. Similar is the case with the brain and nerve centres ; the acts of think- ing and of initiating movements in the voluntary muscles lead to afflux of blood to the nerve centres, to increased nutrition of the ganglion cells and nerve-fibres, and at the same time of the minute vessels, efferent as well as afflsrent. The increased afflux of blood to the brain by the act of thinking has been shown by the ingenious experiment of Mosso [81], one of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2398465x_0039.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
