260 SITUATION AND STRUCTURE 



ramify to every part, gave reason for suspecting that these 

 lymphatic vessels were possibly the excretory ducts of the 

 thymus, and the following experiment proved the conjecture 

 to be well founded. 



EXPERIMENT V. 



SECT. 36. On cutting into the substance of the gland, it 

 was found to contain a white thick fluid, 1 in most respects 

 resembling the fluid found in lymphatic glands, only in larger 

 quantity. A small portion of this fluid being received on a 

 thin piece of glass, was diluted first with serum, then with a 

 solution of Glauber's salt in water, and examined with a mi- 

 croscope. In both these experiments the appearances were 

 exactly the same, as we have related in the Experiments third 

 and fourth ; namely, numberless small particles precisely cor- 

 responding with those found in the lymphatic vessels passing 

 from the thymus, and with those found in the fluid of the 

 lymphatic glands. 



EXPERIMENT VI. 



SECT. 37. A small portion of the thymus gland having re- 

 mained in water a few minutes, in order to wash the white 

 fluid from its surface, was examined with the microscope, and 

 the cellular appearance was seen here as evidently as in the 

 lymphatic gland, which it in every respect resembles. 



SECT. 38. From these experiments we are led to make the 

 following conclusions. That one use of the thymus is to 

 secrete from the blood a fluid, containing numberless small 

 solid particles, similar to those found in the lymphatic glands ; 

 and that the lymphatic vessels arising from the thymus convey 

 this secreted fluid through the thoracic duct into the blood- 

 vessels, and thus become the excretory ducts to this gland. 

 That the structure and uses of this gland are similar to those 

 of the lymphatic glands, to which it may be considered as an 

 appendage. And that this is the fact, is more probable from 



1 Interiorem si rimeris fabricam, in omnibus, quos unquam vidi, fetubus reperies, 

 incisione facta, quocumque loco visum fuerit, ut tamen omnino caro glandulae laedatur, 

 succum lacteolum, frequenter etiam sanguine tinctum, ejusque non minimam copiam 

 exprimi posse. Pressa quacunque glandulae parte succus in vulnus confluit. Bum 

 succum stillatitius vini liquor in grumos cogit. Hall. Elem. Phy. torn, iii, p. 116. 



