THE BLOOD-SUPPLY OF LYMPHATIC VESSELS IN MAN. 
BY 
HERBERT M. EVANS. 
From the Anatomical Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University. 
WitH 13 TExT FIGURES. 
Much interest attaches to the study of the vasa vasorum. Responsible 
for the nourishment of the vascular tree, they have acquired an added 
importance by the assertion, once stoutly maintained, that disease of 
them may initiate arteriosclerosis and phlebitis.’ 
Easy steps led the anatomist to the discovery of the arterial and venous 
vasa vasorum; the coronaries, to be classed here, were early known and 
the unaided eye saw also the nourishing vessels of the ascending aorta 
and arch. It was only natural, then, that other portions of the arterial 
and venous trees should be explored for these structures. 
That the lymphatic vessels of the body also possess proper blood-vessels, 
has, on the contrary, almost entirely escaped notice. Here also, however, 
it was impossible for observers to overlook the presence of vessels on the 
larger lymphatic ducts; but the bare knowledge that they were present 
there was perhaps nowhere more extended than is to be found in Cruik- 
shank’s* statement (1786): “I have injected in quadrupeds the arteries 
on the coats of the lymphatics and seen them ramifying very elegantly 
through their surface. These arteries must have their corresponding 
veins.” 
No account much more satisfactory than this was given to us until 
Dogiel * in 1879 first noticed a beautiful capillary plexus about certain 
of the lymphatics in the rat’s ear. This seemed of sufficient interest to 
1 Their réle, however, in most of the important pathological changes which 
affect the blood-vessels is at present not definitely known, despite the obser- 
vations of Cornil, Quenu, Koester, and others. 
? Cruikshank, W., “ The Anatomy of the Absorbing Vessels.” London, 1786. 
3’ Dogiel, Alexander, Ueber ein die Lymphgefaésse umspinnendes Netz von 
Bluteapillaren. Archiv ftir Mikroskopische Anatomie, Bd. 17, 1879-1880, p. 
334. ~ 
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ANATOMY.—VOL. VII. 
