ABSORPTION BY LACTEAL AND LYMPHATIC VESSELS. 425 



with all the ardor of youth, to verify new experiments, and 

 his disinclination to do so should not be regarded, as it seems 

 to be by some, as a blot upon his reputation. 



In 1649, 1 Pequet discovered the receptaculum chyli, and 

 demonstrated that the lacteals did not pass to the liver, but 

 emptied the chyle into the commencement of the thoracic 

 duct, by which it was finally conveyed into the venous sys- 

 tem. 1 In 1650-'51, the anatomical history of the absorbent 

 vessels was completed by the discovery, by Rudbeck, of vessels 

 carrying a colorless fluid, in the liver, and finally in almost 

 all parts of the body. Rudbeck demonstrated the anatomi- 

 cal identity of these vessels with the lacteals. 3 They were 

 afterward carefully studied by Bartholinus, who gave them 

 the name of lymphatics. 4 



It is unnecessary to follow out the various researches 

 made into the structure of the lymphatics in man and the 

 inferior animals by the Hunters, Hewson, Monro, Cruik- 



1 1649 is given by Haller as the date of this discovery (Elementa Physiologies, 

 Bernse, 1765, tomus vii., p. 203). Some authors state that the discovery was 

 made in 1647, and others in 1648. The original work of Pequet was published 

 in 1651. He does not himself give the date of the discovery, though he states 

 that the investigations which formed the basis of his work occupied three years. 



a J. PEQUETUS, JSxperimenta nova Anatomica, etc., in the BiUiotheca Anatomi- 

 ca by CLERICUS and MANGETUS, Genevse, 1699, tomus il, p. 689 eiseq. 



3 OLAUS RUDBECK, Nova JExercitatio Anatomica, exhibens Ductus Hepalicos 

 Aquosos et Vasa Glandularum Serosa, in the BiUiotheca Anatomica, tomus ii., p. 

 729 et seq. 



4 BARTHOLINUS, Vasorum Lymphaticorum Historia nova, in the Bibliotheca 

 Anatomica, tomus ii., p. 722. The honor of the discovery of the lymphatics is 

 by some claimed for Bartholinus. His observations, however, were made in 

 1651-'52, while those of Rudbeck were made in 1650-51. 



Some authors have advanced the claims of Dr. Jolyffe, an English anat- 

 omist, to the discovery of the lymphatics. In Cruikshank's elaborate work 

 (The Anatomy of the Absorbing Vessels in Man, second edition, London, . 1790, 

 p. 36), it is stated that in 1653, Dr. Jolyffe, who was then taking his degree at 

 Cambridge, informed Glisson that he had discovered a fourth variety of vessels, 

 different from the veins, arteries, and nerves. This was two years later than the 

 discovery of these vessels by Rudbeck ; and it is evident that Jolyffe, who made 

 no publication of his observations at the time, has no claim to priority, though 

 he may have been ignorant of the observations of his predecessors. 



