Wesson xxxvin.] CONCOCTIOX. 23f 



The next stage begins with the slender lacteat 

 veins, where they arise from the intestines by an 

 innumerable multitude of invisible pores, through 

 which the fine, while, fluid part of the chyle is 

 strained or absorbed; while, at the same time, the 

 gross, yellow,, fibrous part, conveyed slowly for- 

 ward, and further attenuated in the long intestinal 

 tube, 15 perpetually pressed and drained of its re- 

 maining chyle, until the dregs, becoming at last 

 useless, are ejected out of the body. 



These lacteal veins issue from the intestines in 

 various directions, now. straight and then oblique, 

 often uniting and growing larger, but presently 

 separating again. They frequently meet at acute 

 angles, and enter into soft glands dispersed through 

 the mesentery, from which they proceed larger 

 than before, and more turgid, with a fine lymph- 

 atic fluid : in most places also they run contiguous 

 to the mesenteric arteries, by whose pulsation 

 their load is pushed forward. And thus, after 

 various communications, separations, and protru- 

 sions, the lacteal veins pour their chyle into a sort 

 of cistern or reservoir formed for that purpose, 

 between the lowest portion of the diaphaygm and 

 highest vertebre of the loins. It is very remark- 

 able, that these veins are furnished with proper 

 valves, which permit the chyle to move forward, 

 but effectually stop its return j and that a great 

 number of veins purely lymphatic, as well as the 

 lacteal ones, empty themselves into the same 

 cistern. 



In all this contrivance it is evident^ that the 

 < chyle 



