THE LYMPHATICS. 315 



glands with which they are usually classed, and approach 

 nearest to the Peyerian patches of the intestine, although they 

 do not wholly correspond with them. Every normal lymphatic 

 gland, within a thin but tough sheath, composed of nucleated 

 connective tissue and fine elastic fibrils, presents a soft, whitish- 

 red parenchyma, in which three elements, viz. a fibrous tissue, 

 a soft, pultaceous pulp, and blood-vessels, are manifest. The 

 fibrous tissue, formed partly of fibrous, and in part of more 

 homogeneous connective tissue, with scattered fine elastic fibres, 

 when the gland is well developed, as is not always the case in 

 Man, but almost invariably in the Cat, Dog, Rabbit, Rat, &c, 

 presents a large number of thin (0*004 — 0*005"' and more) 

 lamellae arising from the sheath, which are so regularly con- 

 nected together as to constitute an elegant areolated structure 

 pervading the entire gland, all of whose roundish spaces, \ — J'" 

 wide, openly communicate, it is true, with each other, but 

 much less freely than is the case with the cells of the corpora 

 cavernosa, for instance. Now, since all these spaces are occu- 

 pied by the greyish-white pulp, the entire gland exhibits 

 externally, and, in some degree, also in a transverse section, a 

 coarsely granular, vesicular aspect, which was known even to 

 the older anatomists, almost like that of the Peyerian patches, 

 since there may be distinguished in it a great number of clear 

 round bodies, like follicles, surrounded by narrow, somewhat 

 darker borders. But upon proceeding to isolate these bodies 

 we shall fail in the attempt, and the septa by which they are 

 parted will be found to be always common to several, some- 

 thing like the walls of the alveoli in the adult lung. Con- 

 sequently, notwithstanding the similarity in outward appearance, 

 and as we shall find, in contents also, there is a very essential 

 difference between the follicles of the Peyerian patches, as well 

 as of the spleen, and of the tonsils, and the alveolar spaces in 

 the lymphatic glands, on which account I shall describe the 

 latter as " alveoli. 33 



The greyish-white alkaline pulp which fills the spaces in 

 question, agrees in nearly all respects with that contained in 

 the Peyerian follicles, and consists of a certain proportion of 

 fluid, and of very many morphological elements. The latter 

 are, in part free nuclei, of 0002 — 0003'", usually without 

 distinct nucleoli, with homogeneous contents, which are never- 



