22<S OF GLANDS. SECT. XXVI. i. i. 



SEC T. XXVI. 



01- THE CAPILLARY GLANDS AND MEMBRANES. 



I. i , The capillary vejjels are glands. 2. Their excretory duels. 

 Experiments on the mucus of the intejlines^ abdomen , cellular mem- 

 brajiey and on the humours of the eye. 3. Scurf on the head, cough, 

 catarrh^ diarrhoea^ gonorrhoea. 4. Rheumatifm. Gout. JLep~ 

 rofy. II. i. The moft minute membranes are unorganized. 2. 

 Large membranes are compofed of the duffs of the capillaries^ and 

 the mouths of the abfor bents. 3, Mucilaginous fluid is fecreted 

 on their furf ace. III. Three kinds of rheumatifm. 



1. r. THE capillary vefTels are like all the"other glands except 

 the abforbent fyflern, inafmuch as they receive blood from the 

 arteries, feparate a fluid from it, and return the remainder by 

 the veins. 



2. This feries of glands is of the mod extenfive ufe, as their 

 excretory dufts open on the whole external fkin forming its per- 

 fpirative pores, and on the internal furfaces of every cavity of 

 the body. Their fecretionon the fkin is termed infenfible per- 

 fpiration, which in health is in part reabforbed by the mouths 

 of the lymphatics, and in part evaporated in the air ; the fecre- 

 tion on the membranes, which line the larger cavities of the 

 body, which have external openings, as the mouth and inteftinai 

 canal, is termed mucus, but is not however coagulable by heat ; 

 and the fecretion on the membranes of thofe cavities of the body, 

 which have no external openings, is called lymph or water, as 

 in the cavities of the cellular membrane, and of the abdomen ; 

 this lymph however is coagulable by the heat of boiling water. 

 Some mucus nearly as vifcid as the white of egg, which was dif- 

 charged by (tool, did not coagulate, though I evaporated it to one 

 fourth of the quantity, nor did the aqueous and vitreous humours 

 of a (heep's eye coagulate by the like experiment j but the fe- 

 rofity from an anafarcous leg, and that from the abdomen of a 

 dropfical perfon, and the cryftaliine humour of a Iheep's eye, 

 coagulated in the fame heat. 



3. When any of thefe capillary glands are ftimulated into 

 greater irritative actions, than is natural, they lecrete a more 

 copious material ; and as the 'mouths of the abforbent fyftem, 

 which open in their vicinity, are at the fame time ftimulated in- 

 to greater action, the thinner and more faline part of the fecre- 

 ted fluidf is taken up again : and the remainder is not only mere 

 copious but alfo more vifcid than natural. This is more or lefs 



troublefome 



