As the blood-vessels advance, they become gradually smaller and
smaller, until at last their tubes are too fine to admit the blood.
This fluid can therefore no longer find its way through them, though
they still give passage to the humour which we call sweat; and
especially so when the body is heated, and the mouths of the small
vessels are dilated. Instances, indeed, are not unknown of persons who
in consequence of a cachectic state have secreted sweat that resembled
blood, their body having become loose and flabby, and their blood
watery, owing to the heat in the small vessels having been too
scanty for its concoction. For, as was before said, every compound
of earth and water-and both nutriment and blood are such-becomes
thicker from concoction. The inability of the heat to effect
concoction may be due either to its being absolutely small in
amount, or to its being small in proportion to the quantity of food,
when this has been taken excess. This excess again may be of two
kinds, either quantitative or qualitative; for all substances are
not equally amenable to concoction.
The widest passages in the body are of all parts the most liable
to haemorrhage; so that bleeding occurs not infrequently from the
nostrils, the gums, and the fundament, occasionally also from the
mouth.
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