442 ABSOKPTION. 



glands resemble the closed follicles in the mucous membrane 

 of the intestinal canal and the Malpighian bodies of the 

 spleen. 



The elaborate researches of Sappey leave scarcely any 

 doubt as to the course and arrangement of the lymphatic 

 vessels in the interior of the lymphatic glands, though the 

 view advanced by him that these bodies consist mainly of 

 lymphatics with a little fibrous tissue cannot be sustained. 

 By pricking a perfectly healthy gland with the delicate point 

 of his apparatus for injecting the lymphatics, he has seen the 

 mercury successively fill the different capillary vessels, and 

 pass into the vasa efferentia. 1 Sappey does not appear, how- 

 ever, to have caused the injection to pass from the afferent 

 to the efferent vessels, entirely through this plexus ; and while 

 the fact of the continuity of these vessels through a capillary 

 plexus is extremely probable, it has not, as yet, been posi- 

 tively proven. 



As far as has been ascertained, the following is the course 

 of the lymphatic vessels through the glands : From two to 

 six vasa afferentia approach the gland, and when within 

 about a quarter of an inch of it, break up into numerous small 

 branches which penetrate its investing membrane. In the 

 substance of the gland, these vessels are distributed in the 

 capillary plexus just described, and emerge by the vasa effer- 

 entia, which are always larger than the afferent vessels, and 

 are from one to three in number. In attempting to pass 

 injections entirely through the glands, the fluid has fre- 

 quently been observed to pass into the small veins ; so that 

 some anatomists have assumed that there is connection in 

 the substance of the glands between the lymphatics and the 

 blood-vessels. It is altogether probable that the passage of 

 fluids into the veins under these circumstances is due to rup- 

 ture of the vessels ; and at all events, the direct connection 

 between them and the lymphatics has never been satisfac- 

 torily demonstrated. 



J SAPPEY, Traite d'Anatomie Descriptive, Paris, 1853, tome i., p. 629. 



