ible, while the reconstitution of
an organ faulty from birth is obviously beyond nature's power.

I can but repeat the directions already given as to the importance of
allowing the heart as much rest, and giving it as little work, as is
possible with a never-resting organ; and this with the added motive for
perseverance furnished by the happy issue which may be hoped for as its
reward.

One word I must add about the occasional occurrence of _irregular
action of the heart_ during the years of growth, especially from the age
of ten to fourteen. This is often quite independent of any disease, and
ceases when with added strength the nervous system becomes less
impressionable.

CHAPTER VIII.

DISEASES OF THE ORGANS OF DIGESTION.

=Manner of Performance of Digestion.=--The organs situated in what is
called in medical language the abdomen, have in the child no other duty
to perform than such as subserve the processes of digestion and
nutrition. The saliva secreted by the appropriate glands in the mouth,
mixing with the food, facilitates the further changes which take place
in the stomach. In the stomach the food is acted on and dissolved by the
gastric juice or pepsin, which is poured out by an almost infinity of
minute tubes, or follicles as they are termed. When the stomach has done
its work, its contents in a semi-fluid state pass into the small
intestine, and mix there with the bile, the secretions from the
intestines themselves, and with those of the large gland, the pancreas
(in culinary language known as the sweetbread), which seems to have the
special power of dissolving fatty matters. As the food, thus acted on,
travels along the intestines, whose constant movement facilitates the
passage of their contents from above downwards, its elements are taken
up, partly by the blood-vessels, partly by innumerable small vessels,
called absorbents from their power of imbibing fluids, and lacteals,
from the milky hue of the fluid within them when first absorbed. The
fluid taken up by the blood-vessels is conveyed to the liver; that taken
up by the absorbents to the mesenteric glands, and in these organs
further changes take place in it, which fit it to be received into the
mass of the circulating fluid. With this it is carried to the right side
of the heart, and thence to the lungs and, lastly, from them to the left
side of the heart, whence it is distributed, the great life and health
giver, to the rest of the body