198 LYMPHATIC SYSTEM. 



ensue ; but the fluid would possess the properties which that 

 lymph does naturally, and be either found coagulated, or would 

 be capable of coagulation, when let out ; the same may be ob- 

 served of an increased secretion, or of an obstruction of a 

 lymphatic vessel ; the fluid would differ from mere water, and 

 would either coagulate or be viscid. Instances of such fluids 

 sometimes occur in dropsies. 



Thus a viscid ropy fluid has been let out of the abdomen, 

 not only in the dropsy of the ovarium, in which such a fluid is 

 commonly met with, but likewise sometimes in the ascites in 

 men. 



In like manner, the cellular membrane is sometimes filled 

 with a gelatinous fluid, which does not ooze out when the in- 

 teguments are scarified, nor does it retain the impression on 

 being pressed with the finger, as in the common anasarca ; this 

 was remarkable in a woman that was in St. George's Hospital 

 a few years ago, and who at the same time had an obstruction 

 of her menses, but no other symptom of ill health. The legs 

 in this woman were swelled to twice their ordinary size, but 

 did not pit on being pressed with the finger. A case of the 

 same sort may now be seen in one of the nurses at St. Bartho- 

 lomew's Hospital. 



A similar gelatinous fluid is sometimes seen upon cutting 

 into tumours of the rheumatic kind near the ligaments of the 

 joints ; and Dr. Lower observed, that it was common to find 

 the pericardium filled with a jelly in dead bullocks. 



As we have remarked of a rupture of the lymphatic vessels 

 in an animal in health, that the fluid which escapes will co- 

 agulate, so we may observe of a wound of such a vessel, the 

 lymph which oozes from it, if the person be in health, will not 

 be a mere water, but will be like the coagulable lymph of the 

 blood in jellying on exposition to the air, only a little later than 

 the blood itself does, if we may judge from what is observed in 

 Chap, vii, pp. 157 et seq. A case of this sort I saw in a butcher, 

 who, by letting his knife fall upon his shin, cut some of the 

 large lymphatic vessels which pass over the tibia, as represented 

 at c c, Plate I, fig. 1. From this wound there flowed a consider- 

 able quantity of a clear lymph, which, being confined by the 

 dressings, jellied, and then, at first sight, appeared like a whitish 

 fungus, but being loose could be removed with a spatula. 



