Page:Structure and functions of the body; a hand-book of anatomy and physiology for nurses and others desiring a practical knowledge of the subject (IA structurefunctio00fiskrich).pdf/33

 nerve becomes tired, degeneration is more rapid. In fact, the degree of exhaustion is determined by several factors, as by relation to the central nervous system, variations in temperature, blood supply, and functional activity, the process being more rapid in warm than in cold blooded animals.

Cilia.—A few motions are accomplished by tissue that is not muscular, as in the case of the cilia attached to the cells of the respiratory tract, which lie flat on the free surface and then lash forward, serving in the air cells to keep the air in motion and in the tubes to send secretions from below upward and outward and to keep out foreign bodies. Cilia are also found in the female genital tract, where they aid the passage of the ovum from the ovary to the womb. They act together, though apparently not governed by the nervous system. As in the white corpuscles of the blood, whose motion also is not muscular, the changes that take place in ciliated epithelium are probably about the same as those in muscular tissue, that is, contractile.

The Blood.—To most of the tissues just described nourishment is brought in the blood, which circulates through the body in a system of hollow tubes, the arteries and veins, whence it is distributed through the agency of the lymphatic system. There are no blood-*vessels, however, in the epidermis, epithelium, nails, hair, teeth, nor in the cornea of the eye. The vessels that carry the blood from the heart are called arteries, those that return it veins. The former begin as large vessels and gradually decrease in size; the latter begin as small vessels and form larger and larger trunks as they approach the heart.

The arteries have three coats: 1. a thin, serous coat, the internal or intima; 2. a middle or muscular coat, and 3. an external coat of connective tissue. The middle coat is the thickest and is the one that prevents the walls from collapsing when cut across. Except in the cranium, each artery is enclosed in a sheath with its vein