ANATOMY OF THE LACTEAL AND LYMPHATIC SYSTEM. 429 



Pig. 6. 



able, therefore, that the capacity of the vessels is much ex- 

 aggerated by the means which are taken to render them 

 apparent. In some recent observations by Dr. Belaieff, of 

 St. Petersburg, into the origin of the lymphatics of the penis, 

 the walls of the vessels were rendered apparent by the action 

 of nitrate of silver in solution in pure water, and it is prob- 

 able that they were very little distended. The smallest of 

 these vessels had a diameter of about 3-^ f an inch. 1 This 

 may be taken as their average diameter in the primitive 

 plexus. This plexus, when the vessels are abundant, as they 

 are in certain parts of the cutaneous surface, resembles an 

 ordinary plexus of capillary blood-vessels, except that the 

 walls of the vessels are thinner and their diameter is greater. 



In a recent work on 

 the lymphatic system, by 

 Dr. Labeda, which seems 

 to represent the latest 

 ideas of the French school, 2 

 it is stated, on the author- 

 ity of Robin (whose ob- 

 servations are said to have 

 been confirmed by His), 

 that the vessels of ori- 

 gin of the lymphatic sys- 

 tem are always applied in 

 the form of a half-cylin- 

 der upon the capillary 

 blood-vessels " in such a 

 manner that the wall of 

 the capillary forms one 

 wall of the lymphatic: 

 they do not pass along the 

 veins, but along the arte- 



1.1. Deep or subdermic net-work of lymphatics 

 of the skin. 2.2.2.2. Vessels branching from 

 this net-work and applied to the internal face 

 of the integument, from which they soon ex- 

 tend and pass into the substance of the subcu- 

 taneous cellulo-aclipose layer. (SAPPEY, Manu- 

 el d' 'Anatomic Descriptive, Paris, 1847, tome 

 i, p. 593.) 



1 BELAIEFF, Rcclierclies Microscopiques sur les Vaisseaux Lymphaiiques du 

 Gland. Journal de I' Anatomic el dela Physiologie, Paris, 186G, tome iii., p. 469. 



2 LABEDA, Sysfeme Lymphatique, Paris, 1866. 



