PUS IN TIIE LYMPHATIC VESSELS. 217 



gical reabsorption of pus ;' ? a reabsorption, in which pus 

 is not reabsorbed as such, but either only its fluid consti- 

 tuents, or its solid ones after they have been considerably 

 altered by an internal transformation. 



There is however certainly one case in which pus in 

 substance may become the object, not exactly of a reab- 

 sorption, but at any rate of an intravasation, and where 

 this intravasated pus may circulate within the vessels ; I 

 mean the case in which a vessel receives a wound or is 

 perforated and pus passes through the opening into its 

 interior. An abscess may lie close to a vein, burst 

 through the walls, and evacuate its contents into the ves- 

 sel. Still more easily can such a transit be effected in 

 lymphatic vessels which run into open abscesses. The 

 only question therefore is how far we are entitled to con- 

 sider this case as a frequent one. As far as the veins are 

 concerned, the possibility of such an occurrence has been 

 for the last twenty years confined within somewhat nar- 

 row limits, and the notion of the reabsorption of pus in 

 substance through the medium of the veins has been 

 more and more abandoned ; but about its taking place 

 by means of the lymphatics people still pretty fre- 

 quently talk, and indeed they have frequently occasion 

 to do so. 



But it is almost a matter of indifference whether the 

 pus really finds its way into lymphatic vessels from the 

 outside, or, whether, as others assume to be the case, it 

 owes its origin to inflammation in the lymphatic vessels ; 

 uHimately, the question is always this, how far a lymph- 

 atic vessel filled with pus is capable of effecting an eva- 

 cuation of its contents into the circulating stream of 

 blood, and producing a genuine pyaemia. The possibility 

 of such an occurrence must as a rule be denied, and in- 

 deed for a very simple reason. All the lymphatic ves- 

 sels which are in a condition to take up pus in this way 



