■2z6 a Of GLANDS. Sect. XXVI. i. f. 



SECT. XXVI. 



OF THE CAPILLARY GLANDS AND MEMBRANES. 



1. I. The capillary veffels are gland r. 2. Their excretory duels, 

 Experiments on the mucus of the intejlines, abdomen , cellular mem- 

 brane •, and on the humours of the eye. 3. Scurf on the head, cough y 

 catarrh, diarrhoea > gonorrhoea,, 4. Rheumatifm. Gout. Lep~ 

 rcfy. II. I. The mofl minute membranes are unorganized. 2. 

 Larger membranes are compofed of the duels of the capillaries, and 

 the mouths of the abforbents. 3. Mucilaginous fluid is fecreted 

 en their furf aces. III. Three kinds of rheumatifm. 



1. 1. The capillary vefTels are like all the other glands except 

 t]\e abforbent fyftem, inafmuch as they receive blood from the 

 arteries, feparate a fluid from it, and return the remainder by 

 the veins. 



2. This feries of glands is of the mod extenfive' ufe, as their 

 excretory duels open on the whole external fldn forming its per- 

 fpirative pores, and on the internal furfaces of every cavity of 

 the body. Their fecretion on the fkin is termed inienfible per- 

 fpiration, which in health is in part reabsorbed by the mouths 

 cf the lymphatics, and in part evaporated in the air ; the fecre- 

 tion on the membranes, which line the larger cavities of the 

 body, which have external openings, as the mouth and inttilinal 

 canal, is termed mucus, but is not however coagulable by heat ; 

 and the fecretion on the membranes of thofe cavities of the body, 

 which have no external openings, i3 called lymph or water, as 

 in the cavities of the cellular membrane, and of the abdomen ; 

 this lymph however is coagulable by the heat cf boiling water. 

 Some mucus nearly as viicid as the white of egg, which was dis- 

 charged by ftool, did not coagulate, though 1 evaporated it to one 

 fourth of the quantity, nor did the aqueous and vitreous humours 

 of a (hern's eye coagulate by the like experiment ; but the fe- 

 rofitv from an anafarcous leg, and that from the abdomen of a 



I perfon, and the cry (taiiine humour of a fheep's eye, 

 igulated in the fame heat. 



3. When any of thcie capillary glands are Simulated into 

 r.ter irritative actions, than is natural, they fecrete a more 



copious material ; and as the mouths of the abforbent fyftem, 

 :ich open in their tv, are at the fame time Simulated in- 



to greater action, the : r and more faline part of the fecre- 



c lyid is taken up 1 ; and the remainder is not only more 



copious bi :'. x."- vifcid than natural. This is more or lets 



troublefom 



