OF THE ABSORBENT VESSELS. 269 



the blood, by assimilating the various fluids, par- 

 ticularly those absorbed by the skin, more and more 

 to an animal nature, by retarding their motion, and 

 perhaps also by superadding to them some fresh se- 

 creted fluid. (E) 



443. These glands that are dispersed generally through 

 the body, and aggregated here and there, as in the groin 

 and axillae, are perfectly similar to those found in the 

 mesentery, consisting, like them, in a great measure, of 

 convoluted absorbent vessels, supplied with an im- 

 mense number of blood vessels, and liable to the same 

 diseases.* 



NOTES. 



(A) Dr. W. Hunter, Mr. Cruikshanks, and others, saw the 

 villi of the intestines perfectly white in a person who had died 

 soon after eating, and twenty or thirty orifices, in a single villus, 

 forming tubes that ran to its base and united into one trunk.f 



(B) If a gland is well injected, the numerous ramifications of 

 the absorbents prevent cells from appearing, but if injected less 

 minutely, cells are very evident, and distinct from the convolu- 

 tions and ramifications of vessels. " If an absorbent gland of a 

 horse is filled with quicksilver and dried, and then carefully slit 

 open, the cells will be seen of a large size, and bristles may with 

 ease be passed through the openings by which they communicate." {" 



&c), and that those absorptions which IJaller endeavours to prove to be 

 accomplished by the veins, do really take place by means of the lymphatic 

 system. De c. h. Fund. Vol. i. p. 281 sq. 



* Nuck, Adenographia Curiosa. LB. 1696. 8vo. 



+ Wilson, Lectures on the Blood, &c. 198. 



X Wilson, 1. c. page 203. Mr. Abcrncthy has described them in the whale as 

 well as in the horse. Phil. Tram. 1796. 



