266 ABSORBENT SYSTEM. 



In an animal opened alive, some hours after it has been fed, 

 the lacteals are seen turgid with chyle : they may also be made 

 visible by throwing coloured thin fluids into the intestines ; or, by 

 making ligatures on the trunk of the anterior mesenteric artery, 

 which will include the trunk of the absorbents. An eye accus- 

 tomed, readily distinguishes lacteals upon the intestines from 

 arteries and veins, even when they are collapsed and empty : 

 punctures may be made with a lancet, and the vessels injected 

 with quicksilver by means of a tube formed expressly for that 

 purpose. I have sometimes injected lacteals from punctures 

 mades by the sides of veins, where I knew they must be, though 

 they were then invisible to the naked eye. 



Upon the liver and lungs lymphatics are frequently visible, 

 and maybe injected by puncturing one of the small branches; 

 but the valves almost always make the injecting of them froui 

 the trunk to the branches impracticable. Pressure in the course of 

 the absorbent circulation will commonly force from the extreme 

 branches into the trunks some little reddish or brownish fluid, 

 making the latter visible, which may then be punctured and in- 

 jected. — Watery fluids thrown into the arteries, veins, or ducts of 

 glands, very commonly get into the absorbents, and render them 

 visible. — One of the best methods is to previously inject the arte- 

 ries and veins of the part, and afterwards macerate it for some 

 days : putrefaction then takes place, air is generated in the cel- 

 lular membrane, whence it gets into the orifices of the lymphatics, 

 and uniformly fills their branches. — The best subject for these 

 injections is one whose limbs are without fat and are dropsical, 

 but not too much so. 



In parts where glands are to be found, it is only necessary to 

 puncture the gland, and introduce a tube filled with quicksilver, 

 or push the pipe into its substance without any previous punc- 

 ture. The mercury thus fills the cells of the gland, and from 

 these the lymphatics. The thoracic duct itself is most suc- 

 cessfully injected in the same way, that is, either from glands 

 upon the mesentery, upon the bodies of the lumbar vertebrse, or 

 those upon the inside of Poupart's ligament. — When vessels 

 are injected, and very much resemble lymphatics, the best me- 

 thod of determining whether they are or are not lymphatics, is 

 to trace them to the nearest lymphatic glands : if they terminate 

 in them in the usual manner, they are lymphatics. 



No English veterinarian, to my knowledge, has, up to the pre- 

 sent day, been at the pains to demonstrate practically the particular 

 distribution of the absorbing vessels of the horse : we have hi- 

 therto travelled onward analogical/i/, and so, I have a notion, 

 should we continue to do, had not our French professional con- 



