Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/33

 EXCRETION EXECUTION 25 of the Christian community, while the Eoman Catholic and eastern churches vested it in the episcopal order. In the church of England the vigorous provisions of the old canon law were for the most part kept in force after the reformation, and were a part of the law of the land until the reign of George III., when (52 George III., c. 127) excommunications and the consequent civil effects were done away with, except for certain specified cases. When the person excommunicated for the offences men- tioned in the act allows six months to pass without submitting to correction, the bishop certifies this contumacy to the court of chan- cery, which issues its writ to the sheriff. The severest penalty enforced is six months' im- prisonment. In Scotland, when the lesser excommunication has failed, the delinquent is subjected to the greater, and the faithful are warned to avoid all unnecessary intercourse with him. In the Protestant Episcopal church certain offences entail the privation of holy communion, while "great h'einousness of of- fence " is followed by loss " of all privileges of church membership." The Methodist Epis- copal church vests the power of excommuni- cation in the minister, after a trial before a jury of peers of the accused. Excommunica- tion is inflicted among the Presbyterians, Con- gregationalists, and Baptists by the church, ac- cording to the view of the early reformers. EXCRETION (Lat. excernere, excretum, to purge), the elimination of waste or effete matters from the living body. There is evi- dence that during the vital processes every exertion of activity by a living tissue or or- gan is necessarily accompanied by a molecular change in its chemical constitution. So inti- mate is this connection between the alteration of substance in a living organ and its physiolo- gical action, that it is impossible to say with certainty which of these two is the cause and which the effect. The fact is however that, as we have said above, every manifestation of vital activity involves a change in the immedi- ate constitution of the active organ. The con- sequence of this is that, in the living body, new substances, the result of its internal dis- integration, are constantly making their ap- pearance. These substances, termed excre- mentitious matters, must not be allowed to re- main and accumulate; for in that case the constitution of the organs would become so changed from their original condition that they would be no longer capable of performing their proper functions. These matters must therefore be gotten rid of, or eliminated from the body, as fast as they are produced; and the process by which this is accomplished is called excretion. The mechanism of this pro- cess is as follows : The excrementitious mat- ters produced in the solid tissues are absorbed from them by the blood, carried by the circu- lation to some organ adapted to the purpose, exhaled or exuded in the gaseous, fluid, or semi-fluid form, and thus discharged from the body. The two principal excretory organs are the lungs and the kidneys. The venous blood in passing through the lungs discharges the carbonic acid which it has absorbed from all the vascular parts of the body, and returns to the left side of the heart purified and renovated. The blood which passes through the circulation of the kidneys exhales, together with its watery parts, urea, creatine, creatinine, and the com- pounds of uric acid ; nitrogenous crystallizable matters produced in various parts of the sys- tem, and which form the important ingredients of the urine. Thus the blood constantly re- lieves the solid tissues of the excrementitious matters produced in their substance, and is it- self relieved of them by passing through the excretory organs. Should this process from any cause be suspended or retarded, the ac- cumulation of excrementitious matters in the body would soon make itself felt by a derange- ment of the health, and especially by its inju- rious effects upon the nervous system. Pain, loss of appetite, confusion of mind, disturbance of the special senses, and in extreme cases con- vulsions, coma, and death, result from the ar- rest of excretion, which is therefore no less important to life than nutrition. EXECUTION, in law, the final process to en- force the judgment of a court, according to the old maxim, executio est fructus et finis legis. In its larger application it includes the process of sequestration formerly used by the court of chancery to carry into effect its decrees, at- tachments for contempt of court, and process in summary proceedings, as upon mandamus and the like; but in its ordinary acceptation it is a writ issued to enforce a judgment in a suit or action in a court of common law. It is unnecessary to speak of the execution in the various real actions which have become obsolete. In England the actions for recovery of real estate, whether corporeal or incor- poreal, are, by statute 3 and 4 William IV., c. 27, now limited to ejectment, quare impedit, and actions for dower. The first is the ordi- nary mode of trying a title to lands, and the execution upon a judgment of recovery is a writ of possession, which in form is directed to the sheriff, commanding him to deliver to the plaintiff the possession of the lands so re- covered. Quare impedit is an action by which the right to a benefice is determined, and takes its name from a clause in the old Latin form of the writ by which the defendant was com- manded to appear in court and show the reason why he hindered the plaintiff from presenting a proper person to a vacant office in a church. Upon judgment in favor of the claim, the exe- cution is a writ directed to the bishop com- manding him to admit the person nominated by the prevailing party. The action also lies for an office in eleemosynary institutions, as hospitals and colleges, which are endowed for the support of their inmates ; and the execu- tion in such cases is the same, except that it will be directed to the corporate officers or