ANATOMY OF THE ABSORBENT SYSTEM. 281 



also called the lymphatic system, owing to the transparent co- 

 lour of the fluid which it conducts. 



With the exception of an imperfect observation of some of 

 these vessels in the mesentery of a goat, by Herophilus and 

 Erasistratus, 280 years before Christ, during the reigns of the 

 Ptolemies in Egypt, what is known of them is entirely a modern 

 acquisition in a*natomy. In 1564, Eustachius discovered the 

 thoracic duct of a horse, which in the ignorance of its use, he 

 called vena alba thoracis. This fact remained insulated and 

 almost forgotten for seventy years. In 1622, Asellius disco- 

 vered the absorbents of the mesentery, and in the discussions 

 consequent thereto, the original observation of Herophilus and 

 Erasistratus was raised from an oblivion of nineteen centuries, 

 to be again brought to light and admired. Asellius seems to 

 have understood that the absorbents of the mesentery collect 

 the chyle from the intestines, but his knowledge ceased there, 

 for he thought that they discharged into the vena portarum.* 

 In 1634, Weslingius saw the thoracic duct again; and in 1649, 

 ascertained that the chyliferous vessels of Asellius terminated 

 in it. In 1650, Olaus Rudbeck, a young man pursuing his ana- 

 tomical studies in Leyden, saw first the lymphatic vessels of 

 the liver, and in a few months afterwards injected similar ones 

 in the loins, in the thorax, in the groins, and in the arm-pits. 

 Thomas Bartholine, a teacher of great reputation in those days, 

 in a dissertation, dated in 1652, claimed for himself the priority 

 of these observations, and from the obscurity of Rudbeck, en- 

 joyed for some time the merit of them. In 1654, Rudbeck 

 published and set forth his own pretensions with such force, 

 that he finally triumphed over his antagonist, but not until the 

 whole world of anatomy had been set in commotion ; one party 

 being for the professor, and the other for the pupil; and many 

 bloody strifes having arisen between the students of the re- 

 spective sides. In 1653, JolyfF, a celebrated anatomist, of Lon- 

 don, proclaimed his own rights to this warmly contested ho- 

 nour; but the period being rather late, his name is scarcely 



* It is somewhat remarkable, that the celebrated Harvey, \vho had himself so 

 much to complain of, in the obstinacy with which his cotemporaries adhered to 

 ancient errors, for thirty years resisted the discovery of Asellius, and died, final* 

 Ir, protesting against it. 



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