108 APPENDIX. 



of branches sent from a large nerve, running parallel with the 

 intestines, and nearer to them than where the trunk of the 

 mesenteric artery sends off its large branches ; but although 

 (says he) I suspect strongly there are here too numerous lac- 

 teals, and I even observe very small knots, which I take to be 

 analogous to our mesenteric glands, yet I have not observed 

 the above-mentioned kinds of food to make any odds in their 

 appearance, 1 &c." And again, after a variety of other experi- 

 ments, he says, " he could not observe more than above 

 described." Now what is there in these notes that can en- 

 title him to the discovery of the lacteals in birds ? Can his 

 seeing a blue plexus on the mesentery, which at first indeed he 

 suspected to be lymphatic, but afterwards to be nervous, and a 

 part of which, he acknowledges, was in his last experiments 

 found to be made of nerves, entitles him to it ? or can his dis- 

 covery of the small knots, which he takes to be analogous to 

 our glands, entitle him to it ? Certainly not. Birds have no 

 lymphatic glands on their mesenteries, as I have shown. 2 Is 

 it not therefore plain, from these notes themselves, that he had 

 not discovered the lacteals in birds ? Has he not repeatedly 

 since that time acknowledged this in his lectures? 3 What 

 shall we say then to his asserting that be had seen them eight 

 years ago, and his laying before a respectable Society, and de- 

 siring his brother to propagate such an assertion ? Or what 

 shall we say to his persisting in it, or above all to his telling 

 us, in his last publication (p. 26} " that in these notes the 

 reader will find the appearance of these vessels after death 

 really described ?" 4 



After these notes follow some others, to prove that he had 

 argued in favour of the probability of the existence of those 

 vessels in birds and fish ; and a conclusion that he had sup- 

 posed frogs might have them and his persuasions that they 

 must have them (not because he had seen them, but) because 

 turtles had them. Which are nothing to the purpose, and 

 ought never to have induced him to claim the discovery, or to 



1 State of Facts, p. 12. 2 Philosoph. Transact, vol. Iviii, art. 34. 



3 See the notes of his students above, p. 102. 



4 Let me beg of the reader again to examine these notes, and then judge of the 

 propriety of Dr. Monro's affirming they really contain a description of those vessels, 

 when he has himself put it in the power of the reader t,o observe the contrary. 



