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As these regular rythmical pulsations recur the blood is forced forward through the heart into the head where it bathes the organs there. We shall see in another chapter that the malarial parasite escapes from the walls of the stomach of the mosquito into the blood in the body-cavity and finally reaches the salivary glands.

It would appear, for example, that pyogenic organisms can pass through the healthy urinary tract without doing any damage, but if the pelvis of the kidney, the ureter, or the bladder is the seat of stone, they give rise to suppuration. Similarly, a calculus in one of the salivary ducts frequently results in an abscess forming in the floor of the mouth.

The anaconda may indeed be able, by reason of its marvellously flexible jaws and its abundant activity of salivary glands, to swallow the calf, and even the ox; but sometimes the serpent is killed by its own voracity, or at least made helpless before the destroying hunter.

Much has been said recently about the ills of overeating. One of the most enthusiastic defenders of a decreased diet is Mr. Horace Fletcher, who, by the practice of protracted mastication, "contrives to satisfy the appetite while taking an exceptionally small amount of food. Salivary digestion is favored and the mechanical subdivision of the food is carried to an extreme point.

In fact, this one establishes pretty clearly the real office of the pancreas in the higher races, exhibiting it to us as an internal salivary gland, intended to complete the work only begun by those in the mouth, in the case of lazy people who swallow their food too quickly. There is the same diversity in the mouth as in the intestine. Some fishes, like the skate, have no tongue at all.

The bottle-fed babies are often plump, even fat, but they are not as strong as those who are fed naturally. They take all kinds of children's diseases very quickly. The glandular system, which is so readily disturbed in children, is more easily affected in bottle-fed babies. And so it comes about that they often have swollen salivary glands, or swelling of the glands of the neck or of the tonsils.

The fangs are like needles with obliquely cut points and slit-like outlets. The poison glands correspond to the bulb of a syringe. They are, in reality, highly modified salivary glands. From them, when the serpent strikes, is ejected a pale straw-colored half-oleaginous fluid. You might swallow it with impunity. But once in the blood, through a cut or wound, it is deadly."

A babe's salivary glands, until he be six or seven months old, does not secrete its proper fluid namely, ptyalin, and consequently the starch of the farinaceous food and all farinaceous food contains starch is not converted into dextrine and grape-sugar, and is, therefore, perfectly indigestible and useless nay, injurious to an infant, and may bring on pain and convulsions, and even death, hence, the giving of farinaceous food, until a child be six or seven months old, is one and the principal cause of the frightful infant mortality at the present time existing in England, and which is a disgrace to any civilized land!

The first indication of it is furnished by the greatly increased activity of the salivary glands, which during the first few months of existence have scarcely begun to perform their function, a fact which accounts for the tendency to dryness of the tongue of the young infant under the influence of very trivial ailments.

It is no sooner taken in than it is swallowed, and the salivary glands, which are still to be found under the tongue, seem only to be there as a matter of form; what little saliva they produce is thick and sticky, and has none of the qualities necessary for making that liquid paste which our tongue sweeps up from every corner of the mouth.