cle, in contra-distinction to two smaller cavities which are near them. These lateral ventricles I am disposed to regard as the sources which nature has furnished for the reception of that halitus which regulates the compressibility of the general substance of the brain: for, as elastic matter is essential to the maintenance of those yielding qualities which the brain is called upon to exercise, according to the greater or less distention of its blood-vessels and other causes, there must, of necessity, be some provision for those different degrees of density which the halitus of the brain at large must experience in the functions of life; but above all, from different states of the sanguiferous system, which are modified by the stomach and alimentary organs; as well as from the excitability of the brain itself and nervous system.

The brain is so abundantly supplied with bloodvessels, in its natural and healthy state, as to convey an idea that a more than common accession of blood is essential to its functions: and as this natural supply of blood is evidently great, it is easy to conceive how a diseased fulness of the

sanguiferous system so readily and so rapidly affects the brain, as is instanced in apoplexy and other diseases.

The ventricles may be regarded as little caverns, which appear to support the great bulk of the brain above them, on the principle of an arch, collecting halitus for the maintenance of its due firmness, and fitted to be the reservoirs of any superfluity of that rare and subtile matter, which requires some receptacle when the substance of the brain is compressed. May not this halitus be the invisible and undemonstrable matter we call nervous fluid? May it not be condensed into a fluid form, in the ventricles, for transmission throughout the nervous system?

If a healthful brain be examined after death, the quantity of fluid contained in the ventricles appears to be so inconsiderable, that it would seem by no means an extravagant speculation to regard it as condensed vapour: but a diseased brain often exhibits very different appearances.

The circumstances which cause a morbid accumulation in the ventricles, appear far more nu

merous than is generally imagined, the quantity being probably influenced altogether by the healthful or disordered state of the circulating system; the quality, by the stomach and alimenfary organs.

Hadvocphalus, or watery head as it is commony called, is a disease of general debility and languid circulation, although some pathologists have reganded it as inflammatory. I conceive it is strictly to be classed among the numerous progeny of Negula, having never seen it unaccompanied by some characteristics of the disease: and whhough it occurs mostly in children while. their bones are yielding, it also occurs long after they have attained their full degree of firmness in accofidux habits. It is a mistake that scrofula ** Hexarily derived from hereditary infirmities. I have again and again found it undeniably established in children who have descended from healthy parents; and incurred by adults whose habits of life have debilitated the animal powers in general. The morbid accumulation of watery fluid in the internal hydrocephalus distends the

ventricles of the brain to various degrees, often destroying their general arrangement and natural figure and, in like manner, they are unduly distended, and influenced as to their contents by a disordered stomach, as will become evident in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XIX.

SIE LULANG AN EYES OF FERMENTED ACT AT EE DEVISKELLA STIMULANTS.

IN TSES har much to say about in access of te sumach, by which SACT THEN I SI use uneasy KOCZ VOCÊ PH & murit fermentareza zmens. They also JEICUM TRNs from

1x ears of the brain: and I TAWNA S vel is insuf

at m he used their ideas 1 J Tres, they

ja mure feltern, to have

a ermenel İçquors causes an

ner wiscie matter from the wanita de Ast, des are not wanting to enci ani afer as sucing two striking evi