From this it is evident, that all the glandular diseases ought to suppose a derangement in these properties; for, as we have often seen, they are the predominant properties of an organ, those, the exercise of which constitutes its peculiar life, which especially determine its diseases, by their alteration. This is in fact what observation shows us. Here we see these properties increased or diminished, sometimes produce an increase of secretion, as in diabetes, mercurial salivation, immoderate flow of bile, &c.; sometimes a diminution, a suspension even of this function, as in acute diseases in which all the ducts are closed as it were in a moment, as in the suppression of urine, dryness of the mouth, &c. It is the alteration in the nature of the glandular sensibility that puts it in relation with fluids foreign to the glands in a natural state; hence the innumerable varieties of the secreted fluids especially in diseases. I have spoken of these varieties as it regards the mucous fluids. The liver and the kidneys particularly do not experience less numerous ones. The taste, the colour, the consistence and odour of cystic bile appear in a thousand different states in dead bodies. Who is ignorant of the innumerable alterations of which the urine is susceptible? The saliva is less variable; but in diseases how different is it from its natural state. It is sufficient to have noticed for some time the various evacuations in diseases, to see of how many modifications they are capable. Nothing less resembles the urine and bile, than the fluids sometimes thrown out by the bladder and the liver; whence do these varieties arise? From this, that the variable organic sensibility places the organ in relation with substances to which it was foreign in a natural state; and from this, that the insensible contractility allows substances to enter the organ which it before excluded. The same gland without changing its texture, by a modification only of its vital forces, can then be a source of an infinite variety of different fluids; I believe even that the kidney, by taking a sensibility analogous to that of the liver, may secrete bile. Why may it not secrete it, if it can secrete other fluids so different from its own?