278 FORMATION OF 



formed where the lymphatic glands are wanting, and yet the 

 red blood is perfect ? In answer to this, we beg leave to re- 

 peat what has been observed in a former chapter, that though 

 animals of the amphibious class have not that circumscribed 

 form of lymphatic gland which we find in the human body, 

 and in the bodies of quadrupeds, yet nature has in them con- 

 stituted a different apparatus to serve the same end, viz. a 

 network of lymphatic vessels on the meshes of the mesentery 

 found in the turtle. For, as we have already shown, the sup- 

 posed cellular structure of the lymphatic glands is by no means 

 necessary to constitute a lymphatic gland ; it is very probable 

 the ultimate branches of the lymphatic vessels in the mesentery 

 of the amphibia may perform the same office in that class of 

 animals which the small cells do in the human body, or in the 

 bodies of quadrupeds ; that is, as the central particles in those 

 animals which have lymphatic glands are formed in the small 

 cells of those glands, so nature in the amphibious class makes 

 the ultimate ramifications of the lymphatic vessels do that 

 office ; so that the same purposes of the animal economy may be 

 equally well effected, whether the parts composing a gland are 

 circumscribed in a proper membrane, or whether the same parts 

 are spread out over a large surface (CXLII). 



SECT. 90. It may be objected by some that the appearance 

 of central particles may be a deception, for that appearance 

 may be seen in many fluids ; but the uniformity of their figure 

 in the same sort of animal, and the difference of their size and 



(CXLII.) Falconar properly insists on Hewson's view, that the glands 

 are appendages to the lymphatic vessels, and that the central particles, 

 or lymph-corpuscles, may be formed in these vessels quite independently 

 of the glands ; thus anticipating the objection commonly urged against 

 his conclusion as to the office of the glands, from the observations of 

 Professors Burdach, a Mliller, b and Henle, c that the corpuscles are found 

 in the inferent lymphatic vessels. In the lymph of these vessels I, too, 

 have often seen the corpuscles ; but they are much more numerous in 

 the lymphatic and mesenteric glands, than in any other part of the 

 system of chyle or lymph vessels : see the Appendix to the English 

 edition of Gerber's 'Anatomy,' pp. 92, 95, 97-8. 



a Traite de Physiologic, tr. par Jourdan, Anatomie Generate, tr. par Jourdan, 

 torn, ix, p. 453, 8vo, Paris, 1841. torn. i,pp. 506-7. 



b Physiology, tr. by Dr. Baly, vol. i, p. 

 263. 1st edit.* 



