It is to the extent of extensibility of the organic muscles and to the limits placed to that of the abdominal parietes, that must be referred a constant phenomenon that is observed in the gastric viscera; viz. that in the natural series of their functions, they are never all distended at the same time; the intestines are filled when the matters contained in the stomach are evacuated; the bladder is not full of urine in the digestive order, until the other hollow organs are empty, &c. In general, that is an unnatural order in which all the organs are distended at once. There is for the organic muscles a mode of extensibility wholly different from that of which I have just spoken; it is that of the heart in aneurisms, and the womb in pregnancy. The first, for example, acquires a size double, treble even sometimes in its left side, and yet it increases at the same time in thickness. This size is not owing to distension, but to a preternatural growth. The aneurismatic heart is to the ordinary heart, what this is to the heart of the infant; it is nutrition that makes the difference and not distension; for whenever it is owing to this it diminishes in thickness as it increases in extent; there is no addition of substance. Besides the aneurismatic heart has not often the cause that distends it, for commonly in this case the mitral valves allow a free passage to the blood; whilst when they are ossified the left ventricle often remains in a natural state. Moreover, the slow progress of the formation of aneurism proves that it is a preternatural nutrition that has presided over this increase of the heart. You would in vain then empty this organ of the blood it contains, it would not contract and resume its dimensions, as the inflated intestine does which we puncture to allow the air to escape.