indiscriminate eaters; and even the most moderate use more than nature demands for the general purposes of life. I believe the formation of calculi of all descriptions, to be especially promoted by such habits of body and habits of life as favour a morbid fermentation in the stomach; and, above all, by the acidifying qualities of fermented liquors and acescent food: and that the circulating mass may thus become charged with an undue proportion of earthy matter, which, through the medium of secernment, is detained in the reservoir of that particular gland, whose secretion possesses the greatest chemical affinity for it. The smallest conceivable portion having thus been deposited, furnishes a nucleus for the attraction and deposition of repeated laminæ, as is particularly instanced in that from the kidneys in their own ventricles, and in the urinary bladder. Gallstones seem little more than indurated bile, which, for want of energy in its secerning organ the liver, and dilution of itself, has partially coagulated; each body of coagulum, no matter how small, furnishing a nucleus for subsequent accessions. Earthy concretions from the lungs and from the salivary glands, have no determinate figure, nor even an approach to it. They are constituted, like the concretions alluded to, of amorphous lime, more commonly combined with the phosphoric than any other acid: and this circumstance alone shows an essential difference between the natural arrangements of health and disease; for the provident ordinations of divine wisdom appear to have assigned its own particular and characteristic figure to every species of matter howsoever minute; whereby the humblest molecules of lime, in the progress of their natural and healthful deposition in the animal body, arrange themselves by the same law as the gaudiest groups of transparent crystals within a massive rock; while, under the influence of disease, they are shaped only by attrition, where surrounded by fluid matter; for example in the kidneys and the urinary bladder, after the manner of pebbles by the ordinary agency of water. No animal secretion, perhaps, is less calculated than the saliva, to furnish us with satisfactory particulars for a standard of its chemical composition; for, unless obtained from the glands themselves, it mixes with mucus as soon as it enters the mouth; and both these secretions not only vary essentially in different subjects from peculiar habit of body, but they become impregnated with earthy, with acid, and with other matters of foreign quality, which are perpetually arising in the form of vapour from the stomach and lungs into the mouth. The upper surface of the tongue furnishes a great medium of attraction for extraneous matter, by reason of its villous and papillated texture; while its main substance, which consists of muscular fibres running in infinitely various directions, serves to facilitate its different motions. CHAPTER III. OF THE THROAT AND ORGANS OF DEGLUTITION-OF THE DIAPHRAGM. BESIDES the depending arch of the palate, already described, with which, the uvula is considerably incorporated, and by its central station gives origin to the figure of two secondary arches, another arrangement of the same figure, and constituted like the foremost of a double membrane with a few muscular fibres, sinks back from the uvula in a vault-like manner, to be connected with the pharynx. Between these anterior and posterior arches, are situated those mucous glands commonly known as the tonsils, and vulgarly as the "almonds of the ears;" an appellation which may be accounted for, in the deafness that frequently results from an enlargement of them, whereby they exert a mechanical compression on the apparatus connected with the internal organ of hearing. The common circumstances of their relaxation, inflammatory augmentation, and consequent formation of abscesses, and their morbid secretion of mucus, are familiar to every one. The discharge of their secretions is effected by the action of the several muscular apparatus surrounding them. From the posterior arch of the palate, a muscular funnel is formed, which has been named the pharynx, from its office of conveying food from the mouth into the stomach (Pɛpw, porto). Muscular fibres from every part of the mouth and throat, are connected with the pharynx, contributing their united action to forward the progress of aliment to its destination. The top of the pharynx is open to the nostrils; whence it is, that by sneezing, hiccup, or any convulsive muscular contraction in the course of deglutition, fluids are sometimes forced into the nostrils. Another troublesome accident not unfrequently attends deglutition, namely, that of portions of aliment "going the wrong way" as it is commonly termed. The fore part of the pharynx is constituted by a membrane which also forms the back с + |