SECT. 2l8.] STRUCTURE OF LYMPHATIC GLANDS. 511 



while a very spare capillary network of separate scanty twigs is 

 alone found around the medullary lymphatic vessels. It is in the 

 cortex that the proper terminal ramification of the arteries takes 

 place. Here the vessels, after leaving the medulla, first run in the 

 partitions of connective tissue between the alveoli, and then, pene- 

 trating into their interior, produce a rich capillary network, with 

 relatively wide meshes, in the delicate trabecular network con- 

 tained in them : in the formation of this plexus, at least in large 

 glands, numerous other small arteries are concerned, which enter 

 the cortex directly from without. The veins present, upon the 

 whole, the same condition as the arteries, only their trunks are 

 less numerous, and are frequently limited to a single large vessel 

 emerging from the hilus. The width of this vein is remarkable, 

 and it often reaches a diameter double that of the corresponding 

 arterial trunk. 



The lymphatic glands, at least the large ones, I have found to 

 possess habitually some fine nerves, with fine primitive fibres : 

 they enter along with the arteries, and are lost to view in the 

 medulla. The ganglia mentioned by Schaffner (Zeitschr. f. rat. 

 Med. vii. 177), in the lymphatic glands, I have not yet seen, nor is 

 the description of them by this author exactly of the kind to 

 awaken much confidence. 



In conclusion, to sum up the anatomical condition of the 

 lymphatic glands, we may state : that they are not to be in any 

 case regarded simply as a plexus, however dense, of lymphatic 

 vessels. The sharp limitation of the organ, its special investment, 

 the abundant stroma of connective tissue traversing it, and the 

 numerous blood-vessels which supply it, are circumstances which 

 even taken by themselves, would give to the gland a claim to a 

 special position of its own, even if the lymphatic vessels in the 

 interior w r ere simply connected with each other after the manner 

 of a rete mirabile. But when we find that these, although ar- 

 ranged in the medulla after the manner of an ordinary plexus, 

 yet present in the cortical substance quite a peculiar condition, 

 such as is nowhere found in the most complicated vascular coils, 

 it is certainly warrantable to regard the lymphatic glands as organs 

 sui generis, and not as a plexus of lymphatic vessels. The pecu- 

 liarity of the cortical substance is owing to two circumstances, 

 first, that the lymphatic vessels here lose their special walls, and 

 arc replaced by a system of freely communicating lacunae ; and 

 secondly, that the fibrous and trabecular tissue forming these 

 lacuna), is traversed by numerous blood-capillaries. In other words, 



