VOL. II.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. J 63 



Extract of a Letter from M. Pecquet,''^ concerning a 7iew Discovert/ of 

 the Communication of the Ductus Thoracicus with the Emulgent Vein. 

 N' 25, p. 461. 



This letter gives an account of a supposed discovery of a communication be- 

 tween the thoracic duct and the emulgent vein of the left kidney. The subject 

 was a woman who had died some days after she had been brought to bed. 

 M. Gayant (who assisted M. Pecquet in this dissection) having discovered the 

 ductus thoracicus upon the 7 th and 8th of the vertebrae descending from the 

 back, inserted a quill into the said duct, and having tied it upon the quill, he 

 blew into it : whereupon the duct was filled with wind from the quill unto the 

 subclavian vein. This wind issued at the ascending cava, which had been cut, 

 when he, to whom the corpse belonged, had lifted up the heart to make the 

 demonstration of it. M. Gayant would tie this cava, but it was cut so short, 

 that the ligature could not hinder the wind from issuing out of it ; which was the 

 cause that it could not be thrust as far as the breasts. I would supply this de- 

 fect by compressing with my finger that place of the vein at which the wind 

 came out (which was at about the third vertebra descending from the back) 

 and M. Gayant having blown afresh into it, I compressed with my fingers the 

 vena cava and the ductus thoracicus together ; but the wind that was thrust 

 into this channel showed us that it had another way to escape. And indeed 

 we saw as often as we did blow, that the emulgent vein on the left side was 

 filled with wind, and that thereupon the body of the vena cava also filled itself 

 from the emulgent unto the iliacs. This wind seemed to us to come from the 

 left kidney, and to insinuate itself into the emulgent vein, and thence into the 

 cava. The right kidney had been removed, so that we could say nothing of its 

 communication with the said duct. 



The question was made, whether the wind that seemed to enter into the 

 emulgent and the cava did enter there indeed ; or, whether it did not slide 

 between the proper coat of this vein and that common one which comes to it 



* Tliis celebrated French anatomist was bom at Dieppe, and flourished about the middle of the 

 17 th century. In l651 he discovered the duct which conveys the chyle to the subclavian vein, and 

 which has been called, after his name, Receptaculum Chyli Pecquetianura. This duct he traced and 

 described not only in the human body but in brute subjects also. See his Experimenta nova Anato- 

 mica, of which tlie best edition is that which was printed at Paris, 4to. l65-t. He died in l6'74, hav- 

 ing shortened his days by the abuse of spirituous liquors, which, by a strange infatuation, he believed to 

 be extremely nourishing. His discoveries involved him in a controversy with Riolan and other con-. 

 temporary anatomists, whom, however, he very successfUly reflated in his Dissertatio de Thoracicis 

 Lacteis, published in iCGl. 



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