120 LYMPHATIC SYSTEM. 



adopted about the use of this organ, which, from the authority 

 of the older anatomists, they believed was the viscus hsemato- 

 poieticum, or that received the chyle from the intestines to 

 convert it into blood. 



Next, Rudbeck, anno 1651, 1 Dr. Jolyffe, 2 and Thomas Bar- 

 tholin, about the year 1652, 3 discovered the other parts of this 

 system, which, from their carrying a transparent and colourless 

 fluid, are called the lymphatic vessels. And thus there was 

 proved to exist in an animal body a system of small vessels 

 carrying fluids very different from the blood, and opening into 

 the sanguiferous vessels at the left subclavian vein. 



To Asellius, Pecquet, Rudbeck, Jolyffe and Bartholin, we 

 are therefore indebted for the discovery of the different parts 

 of this system ; not but that some of these vessels had been 

 seen and mentioned by their predecessors, but it was in too 

 cursory a manner to give them any title to the discovery. 4 



After this period Nuck added to our knowledge of this system 

 by his injections of the lymphatic glands, 5 and Ruysch by his 

 description of the valves of the lymphatic vessels, 6 and Dr. 

 Meckel by his accurate account of the whole system, and by 

 tracing those vessels in many parts where they had not before 

 been described. 7 



Besides these authors, Dr. Hunter and Dr. Monro have 

 called the attention of the public to this part of anatomy, in 

 their controversy concerning the discovery of the office of the 

 lymphatics (LXI). 



When the lymphatic vessels were first seen and traced into 



1 01. Rudb. Exercit. Anat. cap. i, in Hemsterhuis Messe Aurea. 



2 Glisson de Hepate, cap. xxxi. 



3 Barthol. de Lacteis Thoracis, in Hemsterhuis Messe Aurea. 



4 Thus the lacteals had been seen in kids by Erasistratus, who calls them arteries, 

 as we are informed by Galen. See Galen Oper. torn, i, p. 61, edit, apud Junt. The 

 thoracic duct had been seen by Eustachius, who speaks of it as a vein of a particular 

 kind. See Eustachius de Vena sine Pari. 



8 See his Adenographia. 6 In his Delucidatio Valvularum. 



7 Epistola ad Hallerum. 



(LXT.) See the Introduction. The controversy alluded to by Mr. 

 Hewson will be found in the ' Observations, Anatomical and Physio- 

 logical, wherein Dr. Hunter's claim to some discoveries is examined, 

 by Alexander Monro, junior, M.D.' 8vo, Edinb. 1758; and 'Medical 

 Commentaries, Part I, containing a plain and direct answer to Professor 

 Monro, junior, by William Hunter, M.D.' 4to, Lond. 1762. 



