4:24: ABSORPTION. 



talius, two of his friends who were present at his first demon 

 stration. 1 



Like many great discoveries, the demonstration of the 

 lacteals was denied by several of the prominent physiologists 

 of the day. Among others, Harvey is frequently quoted as 

 refusing to recognize the claims of Asellius ; a want of 

 appreciation of the claims of another to an important dis 

 co very, which might justly be regarded as ungenerous in so 

 great a discoverer, and one who suffered so keenly from si in 

 ilar opposition. "We do not find, however, that this subject 

 is discussed to any extent in the systematic works of Harvey ; 

 but it is mentioned in letters written during the later periods 

 of his life. In one of these, addressed to Dr. Morison, of 

 Paris, in 1652, in speaking of the discovery by Asellius and 

 the later discovery of the connection between the lacteals 

 and the thoracic duct by Pecquet, Harvey, while admitting 

 the existence of the vessels, does not acknowledge that they 

 carry the chyle from the intestine. 2 In another letter, writ- 

 ten in 1655, he excuses himself from investigating the sub- 

 ject of the use of these vessels on account of his advanced 

 age, " which unfits us for the investigation of novel subtleties, 

 and the mind which inclines to repose after the fatigue of 

 lengthened labors." 3 At the time when the first letter was 

 written, Harvey was seventy-four years of age, and he was 

 seventy-seven at the date of the second letter. The positive 

 proof of the connection of the lacteals with the thoracic duct 

 was only published in 1651, and. the work reached Harvey 

 just before the letter to Dr. Morison was written. It is not 

 to be expected that H^vey would at that time attempt 



1 It is stated by Breschet that in 1628, the lacteals were seen for the first 

 time in the human subject. The body of a criminal, who had made a copious 

 repast before his execution, was given by Peiresc, senator of Aix, to Gassendi, 

 and some physicians of his acquaintance, who made an examination an hour and 

 a half after death and found the vessels full of chyle. (BRESCHET, Systeme Lym- 

 phaiique, Paris, 1836, p. 4.) 



2 HARVEY, Works, Sydenham edition, London, 1847, p. 604 

 ? Ibid., p. 613 et seq. 



