140 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 



NOTE F. (Page 68.) 



When these observations were communicated 

 to the Royal Society, there was not the same 

 uninterrupted intercourse with other countries 

 as at the present time ; and hence it was that I 

 was not acquainted with the very important 

 researches respecting absorption by the veins, 

 an account of which had been previously given 

 to the Institute by M. Magendie. Holding the 

 opinion, which was then universally received, 

 that absorption, in the physiological sense of the 

 word, is performed only by the lymphatic 

 vessels, I was led to believe that as the poison 

 did not enter the circulation by the latter channel, 

 it could have done so only by the wounded veins. 

 With the knowledge of the facts established by 

 M. Magendie, it is scarcely necessary for me to 

 add, that I do not at present doubt that the 

 division of the veins is not necessary to the 

 admission of the poison into these vessels. 



Although it is satisfactorily proved that certain 

 poisons affect the system through the medium of 

 the blood, there are nevertheless some facts which 

 seem at first to be incompatible with this view 

 of the subject. I refer more especially to the 

 experiments of M. Magendie, in which he found 

 that when the blood of a poisoned animal had 

 been transfused into the bloodvessels of another 

 animal, the latter was in no degree affected by it. 



