VOL. II.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 247 



coverer (though, as Asellius himself acknowledges, the accidental discoverer) of 

 the lacteals ; Pecquet,-|- the discoverer of the thoracic duct; and Bartholine J and 

 Rudbeck,§ who by chance hit upon the lymphatics while they were busied in 

 tracing the lacteals ; though Dr. C. asserts that his countryman Jolif, while he 

 was examining the spermatic vessels in l652, tying a ligature above, and with 

 his hand squeezing the testicle and its involucra beneath, in order to render the 

 blood vessels more turgid, unexpectedly saw for the first time the lymphatic ves- 

 sels in like manner rendered turgid. These observations are followed by some 



* Caspar Asellius was bom at Cremona, and taught anatomy in the university of Pavia, with great 

 celebrity, in the beginning of the 17th century. In l662 he discovered the lacteals in the mesentery 

 of a dog. He drew up an accurate description of these vessels,, illustrated by coloured plates, in a 

 work entitled Dissertatio de Lactibus seu lacteis Venis, published at Milan, in l6'27, the year after 

 his death. These vessels had been seen by Erasistratus many centuries before, in the mesentery of 

 goats J but no farther notice had been taken of them until they were agam detected by Asellius in his 

 anatomical investigations. 



f Some biographical notices of this anatomist have been given at p. l63, vol. i. of this Abridge- 

 ment, 



X Thomas Bartholine, one of the greatest anatomists of the l/th century, was the son of Caspar 

 Bartholine, (a man of universal erudition, and equally distinguished as a theologian, a philosopher, and 

 physician) and was born at Copenhagen in 1616. He spent many years at foreign universities, 

 travelling through Holland, France and Italy, On his return to Copenhagen in 1&47, he was at first 

 made professor of mathematics, but afterwards filled the anatomical and medical chair in that univer- 

 sity. In this situation he discovered, in conjunction with Rudbeck, the lymphatic vessels. He also 

 traced the course of the thoracic duct in the human subject, confirming and elucidating Pecquet's de- 

 scription thereof. His anatomical and medical writings are very numerous. Next to his tracts con- 

 cerning the lymphatics, lacteals, and thoracic duct, the chief are his edition of his father's Institutiones 

 Anatomicae, with notes and copious additions of his own; his Collegium Anatomicumj his Historiae 

 Anatomicae ; his Epistolae Anatomicae ; his Dissertatio de Medicina Danorum ; his Cista Medica, and 

 his Orationes Varii Argumenti. -He was besides a principal contributor to the Acta Medica and Phi- 

 losophica Hafniensia. The number of his works would have been still greater, had not his library 

 and MSS, been destroyed by fire in l6"70. This celebrated man died in 168O, aged 6'4-. Some 

 years before his death he was appointed physician to Christian the Vth, was made rector of the 

 university of Copenhagen, and had other honours conferred upon him. 



§ Olaus Rudbeck was born at Arosia in Westmania, a province of Sweden, in l630. He was pro- 

 fessor of physic in the uni\ ersity of Upsal, and founder of the botanic garden there. The lymphatics 

 of the liver (which he called ductus hepatis aquosos) were discovered by him and Bartholine jointly. 

 He undertook, with the assistance of his son, a magnificent botanical work in folio, entitled Campi 

 Elysii; but lost most of his MS. in the great conflagration which happened at Upsal in 1702, during 

 which year he died, aged J 3. Besides his anatomical Exercitatio exhibens ductus hepatis aquosos, 4to. 

 1053, and the botanical undertaking above mentioned, he also wrote a large historical and archaiologi- 

 cal work, entitled Atlantica sive Manheim, in 3 vols, folio. It is said that he performed the Caesarian 

 operation upon his own wife, so successfiilly as to save both mother and child. This was certainly 

 an instance of great chirurgical intrepidity as well as skill. Fragments of the Campi Elysii were pub- 

 lished some years ago by Dr. E. Smith, purchaser of the Linnaean Museum, founder of the Linnaean 

 Society in London, and one of the first botanists of the age. 



