182 LYMPHATIC SYSTEM. 



After thus being convinced that the use of one branch of 

 the system is to absorb, we cannot at first sight but wonder 

 that any anatomist should have hesitated to attribute a similar 

 office to the other. Nevertheless, some anatomists have been 

 led to ascribe to the lymphatics a very different use to what 

 they found the lacteals perform ; particularly since the time 

 that Nuck first made his experiments, in which he thought he 

 injected these lymphatic vessels from the arteries, and there- 

 fore concluded that they had no other use than as correspond- 

 ent veins to return the lymph from such arteries as were too 

 small to admit the red blood or the serum. And in this 

 opinion anatomists were confirmed by the theories of Leeuwen- 

 hoek and of Boerhaave, concerning the gradation in the series 

 of the globules of our fluids, and of the sizes of the vessels 

 destined to convey them ; thence the idea of the lymphatic 

 vessels being small veins continued from arteries became so 

 general amongst physiologists. 



But although this idea was so commonly received, yet there 

 were some physiologists who reasoned better on the subject ; 

 and amongst the first of these was Glisson, who, in a book 

 published the very year after that in which Bartholin wrote 

 upon the lymphatics, attributes to those vessels the office of 

 carrying back to the blood-vessels the lymph which had lubri- 

 cated the cavities of the body. 1 



M. Noguez (LXXXIII *) likewise, in a chapter where he men- 

 tions the name of Dr. Glisson, speaks of the use of the lym- 

 phatics as follows : " Us reportent la lymphe dans les vaisseaux 



1 De Hepate, cap. xlv, edit. Lond. 1654. 



(LXXXIII*.) Dr. Simmons* stated that the main points at issue in 

 the controversy between Dr. Hunter and Dr. Monro, alluded to by Mr. 

 Hewson at page 120, were known long before to M. Noguez ; where- 

 upon Mr. John Hunter b insisted on his brother's claim to the dis- 

 covery of the office of the lymphatic vessels, observing that Noguez 

 entertained on the subject the erroneous doctrines of his day, and that 

 he did not in the least comprehend the absorbent system as Dr. Hunter 

 understood it. But, as mentioned in Notes LXV * and LXXXII, it is 

 now well known that absorption may take place in parts of the animal 

 body which have no lymphatic vessels. 



a Life of Dr. William Hunter, p. 30, 8vo, logue of the Museum of the Royal 

 London, 1783. College of Surgeons, vol. ii, pp. 10- 



b Extract from his MSS. in the Cata- 13, 4to, London, 1834. 



