GENERAL ANATOMY. 



nor their patelous mouths have ever been seen. The follow- 

 ing are the opinions and facts known with respect to this nice 

 point of anatomy. Aselli has said, with reference to the lac- 

 teal or chyliferous vessels: " ad intestina instar hirudinum 

 orificia horum vasorum hiant spongiosis capitulis" Hel- 

 vetius asserts that the intestinal villosities have spongy orifices. 

 Lieberktihn speaks of a spongy or cellular ampulla. Hewson 

 rejects the belief in this ampulla. Cruikshank describes and 

 figures twenty or thirty openings, each larger than a globule of 

 blood at the summit of each villosity. Sheldon makes the vil- 

 losities terminate by a spongy tissue, and appears to confound 

 the follicles with them. Mascagni could see no orifices at the 

 summit of the villosities. Feller and Werner describe an am- 

 pulla, and trace vessels into it. Bleuland admits openings at 

 the summit of the villosities. Scemmerring observes that from 

 six to ten absorbent orifices may be seen in each of them. 

 Hedwig considers the ampulla as spongy, and describes their 

 summit as having one orifice or more, or none Rudolphi has 

 never seen any orifices, and those which have been admitted 

 seem to him to depend on optical illusions. This is quite suf- 

 ficient in order to conclude, that the orifices which have been 

 described do not distinctly exist. We must add, however, 

 that when a very penetrating injection is thrown into the in- 

 testinal veins, the matter in passing into the arteries, transudes 

 also at the free surface of the mucous membrane. It is known 

 with respect to the skin, that when a lymphatic vessel of that 

 membrane has been injected, if the mercury be pushed back 

 towards the roots of the vessels, it at length issues from its free 

 surface, as remarked by Haas. Mascagni has made this experi- 

 ment, and any person may easily repeat it, on the sub-perito- 

 neal lymphatic vessels of the liver. Finally, Carlisle asserts 

 that he has seen orifices of lymphatic vessels in a cell of the 

 cellular tissue. 



However doubtful and contradictory the facts may be, the 

 following is the opinion generally admitted, namely, that at 

 the surface of the tegumcntary and serous membranes, in the 

 areolae of the cellular tissue, and according to Mascagni, at the 

 very surface of the vessels, there are orifices of absorbent radi- 



