LYMPHATIC SYSTEM. 185 



doctrine, but improperly, and being now given up by those 

 who advanced them, 1 they need not be dwelt upon here. 



But our experiments, related above, furnish another argu- 

 ment in favour of the lymphatics being a system of absorbents; 

 for, in chapter the seventh, we have mentioned that in these 

 experiments we have always found the fluids contained in the dif- 

 ferent cavities of the body and that contained in the lymphatics 

 exactly agreeing with one another, in their transparency, in their 

 consistence, &c. And in animals in health we likewise found, 

 when the one jellied on being exposed to the air, the other 

 did so too ; and in the animal reduced by low diet, where the 

 properties of the one were altered, those of the other were so 

 likewise, and exactly in the same manner (LXXXV). So that 

 we now seem to have obtained as decisive an argument in fa- 

 vour of absorption by lymphatics as we before had of that by 

 the lacteals ; fbr the lacteals were concluded absorbents from 

 their being found to run from the intestines filled with a fluid 

 similar to what was in the cavity of the gut ; so we seem here 

 to have the samfc reason for believing that the lymphatics ab- 

 sorb from cavities, because they are found to contain a fluid 

 exactly similar to what is observed in these cavities ; a strong 

 argument that the fluid had passed from such cavities into 

 these lymphatics by absorption. 



Such then seems to be the purpose for which the lymphatic 

 vessels were provided, that is, to do the office of absorption, an 

 office of the greatest- importance to the animal : no wonder, 

 therefore, that there should be a system set apart for perform- 

 ing it, and not only in man and quadrupeds, but also in birds, 

 fish, amphibious animals, and perhaps even in insects of the 

 most perfect kind. 



1 See Dr. Hunter's Medical Commentaries, p. 57. 



(LXXXV.) See Notes LXVIII, LXIX and LXXI. 



