LYMPHATIC SYSTEM. 169 



there should be filtrated from the blood a fluid that was not in it. 

 And if pus, which passes from the same pores, can only be account- 

 ed for by supposing these pores to be organical, in like manner 

 is it not probable, that the secretion of the natural lymph is not 

 a straining through inorganical,but through organized passages? 



Lastly. It has been brought as an argument in favour of 

 transudation in the living body, that blood transudes after death, 

 and this has been explained on the supposition that the blood 

 was thicker before the coagulation of the lymph. Which 

 supposition appears ill-founded, when we speak of the living 

 body ; for in former experiments 1 we have observed that this 

 lymph, frequently at least, rather thins than thickens the 

 blood (LXXVI). If therefore the blood transudes in the dead 

 and not in the living body, we should rather attribute it to a 

 change in the vessels than in the blood, as is probable from a 

 careful examination of that very fact which has been brought 

 as the principal argument in favour of transudation, viz. the 

 parts adjacent to the gall-bladder being tinged with bile ; for 

 any one who will take the trouble of standing by a butcher, 

 whilst he kills a sheep, will find the contrary to that gentleman's 

 conclusion, that upon opening the animal immediately there' is 

 no appearance of the gall having transuded, for none of the 

 parts surrounding the gall-bladder are tinged. But let the 

 animal continue a day or two unopened, and then the gall will 

 be found to have transuded, and to have tinged the neighbouring 

 parts ; as is the case in the human body by the time that we 

 inspect it. 



Since then the gall-bladder so readily allows of transudation 

 after death, and not during life, is it not probable that there 

 is in our membranes and our blood-vessels a degree of tension, 

 or a power of preventing the fluids oozing out of them, which 

 power is lost with life ? (LXXVII.) 



1 See Exp. Inquiries, part i. 



(LXXVI.) See Note xxni. 



(LXXVII.) Hewson's view is supported by the experiments of Dr. 

 Davy, a showing that the fresh urinary bladder is perfectly retentive 

 of water, though it passes slowly through after a few hours ; and still 

 later, when the bladder becomes putrid, the water passes as through 

 coarse filtering paper. 



a Researches, Physiol. and Anat. vol. ii, pp. 250-51. 



