It can be admitted, therefore, that a deleterious action has taken place in the digestive tract, whose functions are the first to be affected; this agent is 'transmitted by absorption to the glands of the mesentery and to the lymphatic system' (hence the vegetative disorder), and from there 'to the system as a whole', especially to its encephalic and nervous elements, which explains somnolence, the deadening of the sense functions, delirium, and the phases of the comatose state.