GENERAL ANATOMY OF THE ABSORBENT SYSTEM. 345 



have any communication with the secreting ducts of glands. 

 In injecting the excretory ducts of the glands with mercury, 

 especially those of the mamma, testicle, and liver, it i^ very 

 usual to find some of it escaping into the absorbent vessels. 

 This, which to all appearance, would seem to prove their 

 direct connexion, is notwithstanding considered by many dis- 

 tinguished anatomists, as caused by a rupture of some part of 

 the glandular structure, and that the mercury finds its way 

 into the openings made by the laceration in the absorbent ves- 

 sels. But the communication between these vessels and the 

 excretory ducts, takes place so readily, in the injection of the 

 latter, and so much without the appearance of extravasation, 

 as to render it most probable that there exists some anasto- 

 mosis between them. The same degree of doubt exists in 

 regard to the connexion between the absorbents and small 

 veins. It has been chiefly alleged to exist between them in 

 the excretory glands of the body, and in the absorbent glands 

 themselves ; in all which parts, the friability of their structure 

 renders them liable to laceration, by the pressure from a mer- 

 curial column, or by ordinary minute injection thrown in with 

 force. Though the fact is very evident, that many of the 

 absorbents may be filled by injection of the ducts of the 

 secernent glands, and that mercury passes with extreme 

 facility from the lymphatics of the absorbent glands into the 

 veins, the weight of testimony, is certainly at present in favor 

 of its taking place only in consequence of a laceration of tissue. 

 The statements of Lippi,* in regard to the free communica- 

 tion, between the lymphatic vessels and veins, are now disre- 

 garded, in consequence of its having been shown by Fohman, 

 Panissa, and Breschet,f that he had mistaken in his investiga- 

 tions capillary veins for lymphatic vessels. 



The opinion in regard to the terminations of the absorbents, 

 since the alleged venous communications of Lippi have been 

 disproved, has now the same as that entertained formerly, 



* Illust. Fisiol. e Palhol. del Sistem. Limfat. Chil. etc. Firenze, 1825. p. 

 f Vide Breschet, sur la Systeme Absorbante. 



