iv] of Glands and Tissues. 105 



YVirsung never followed up his discovery of the pancreatic 

 by any study of the function of glands; and the new fact 

 remained, so far as he was concerned, barren. 



The next step was taken by the Englishman Thomas 

 Wharton, who, born in 1614, seems to have carried out his 

 medical studies exclusively in London, where he subsequently 

 practised as a physician, being a great friend and ally of Glisson. 

 In 1656 he published under the title of Adenographia, an 

 exhaustive treatise on glands, the outcome of the anatomical 

 lectures which he had given at the College of Physicians in 

 1652. In this he describes the anatomy, i.e. the external form 

 and naked eye structure (for he does not seem to have used the 

 microscope), and especially the arrangement of nerves, blood 

 vessels and lymphatics, of all those organs in the body which he 

 called glands, including in that term the brain and tongue. In 

 the course of his description he gives an account of the discovery 

 which he had made of the duct of the submaxillary gland, the 

 duct which has since borne his name. He insists that by this duct 

 real saliva, not mere phlegm or mucus, is discharged into the 

 mouth. He also developes a theory of the use of glands, both 

 of those having a duct and of those having none, which is worth 

 noticing as illustrating some of the views of the period. While 

 not denying that the blood brought to the gland by the arteries 

 supplied the gland with material, and, in the case of a gland 

 with a duct, furnished a part at least of the juice, he attached 

 much greater importance to the nerves, and to the succus 

 nerveus, which they carried ; he like Borelli and others adopts 

 this new term for the old animal spirits. He points out that 

 most glands are richly provided with nerves, and argues that 

 these nerves play one or other or both of two parts. They 

 either give up something by the removal of which the succus 

 nerveus is purified, the too great humidity of the nerves being 

 thus lessened, the matter so transferred from the nerves to the 

 gland leaving the gland by its duct, or in the absence of 

 a duct, by the veins or lymphatics; or they take something 

 from the gland by which means the succus nerveus is fortified. 



It is obvious that Wharton was far from grasping the 

 true meaning of his remarkable discovery. 



