SECT. XXIX. 7.1. ABSORBENTS. 263. 



in the fame manner as it is carried to the bladder, by the inverted 

 motions of the urinary lymphatics. Medic. Obfervat. and 

 Enq. London, vol. v. 



Are not the cold fweats in fome fainting fits, and in dying 

 people, owing to an inverted motion of the cutaneous lymphat- 

 ics ? for in thele there can be no increafed arterial or glandular 

 action. 



Is the difficulty of breathing, arifing fromanafarcaof the lungs, 

 relieved by fweats from the head and neck; whilft that difficul- 

 ty of breathing, which arifes from a dropfy of the thorax, or 

 pericardium, is never attended with thefe fweats of the head ? 

 and thence can thefe difeafes be diftinguifhed from each other ? 

 Do the periodic returns of nocturnal afthma rife from a tempo- 

 rary dropfy of the lungs, collected during their more torpid (late 

 in found fleep, and then re-abforbed by the vehement efforts of 

 the difordered organs of refpiration, and carried off by the co- 

 pious fweats about the head and neck ? 



More extend ve and accurate diflections of the lymphatic fyi- 

 tem are wanting to enable us to unravel thefe knots of fcience. 



VII. Tranjlations of Matter ', of Chyle y of Milk, of Urine. Oper- 

 ation of purging Drugs applied externally. 



1. THE tranflations of matter from one part of the body to 

 another, can only receive an explanation from the doctrine of 

 the occafional retrograde motions of fome branches of the lymph- 

 atic fyftem : for how can matter abforbed and mixed with the 

 whole mats of blood, be fo haftily collected again in any one 

 part ? and is it not an immutable law, in animal bodies, that 

 each gland can fecrete no other, but its own proper fluid ? which 

 is, in part, fabricated in the very gland by an animal procefs, 

 which it there undergoes : of thefe purulent tranflations innu- 

 merable and very remarkable inftances are recorded. 



2. The chyle, which is feen among the materials thrown up 

 by violent vomi \ ig, or in purging (tools, can only come thither 

 by its having been poured into the bowels by the inverted mo- 

 tions of thelafteals : for our aliment is not converted into chyle 

 in the ftomach or inreftines by a chemical procefs, but is made 

 in the very mouths of the lacteals , or in the mefenteric glands j 

 in the fame manner as o'ther fecreted fluids are made by an ani- 

 mal procefs in their adapted glands. 



Here a curious phenomenon in the exhibition of mercury is 

 worth explaining : If a moderate dofe of calomel, as fix or ten 

 grains, be fwallowed, and within one or two days a cathartic is 

 given, a falivation is prevented : but after three or four days, a 



falivation 



