VOL. XIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 45 



the lacteal and lymphatic vessels have mouths or openings, whereby they receive 

 and take in the chyle out of the guts; for I am persuaded that the extremities 

 of the lacteae in the guts are as well covered with their coat or membrane in 

 that place, as in other parts of the body, which nevertheless will not hinder the 

 food from passing out of the guts. And as the arteries, whose coats are made 

 up of a thready substance, can strain the blood through them, so the nutritive 

 juice also may pass through the thready coats of the blood, water, and milk- 

 vessels, and in the same manner, the small branches of the veins may take up 

 substances out of the bowels and carry them to the heart. This will not seem 

 strange when we consider, that if a milk, water, or blood-vessel, be 1000 

 times less than a hair of one's head, the coats of them must needs be very thin, 

 and the threads whereof the coats are made yet thinner. How easy must mois- 

 ture pass through the sides of such vessels, especially when the matter which 

 is to enter into the vessels is thinner than that which is already contained in 

 them. 



It has been objected, that while the passage into the vessels is so open, a 

 quantity of air and wind may also get into them. Now that we may see how 

 the moisture may pass out of the bowels into the veins, and the wind not pass, I 

 made this following trial : I took an ox bladder, blew it up, and let it dry, as fig. Q, 

 pi. 2, ABCD, I then took a piece of a hog's gut made clean, about the length 

 of a span, and tied it up at E; then I put into it water, till the gut was about a 

 quarter full ; afterwards I forced in 3 quarters more of air, binding it fast at F. 

 The gut then lay upon the bladder as EF ; I then hung them in a chimney, 

 where was made but little fire, and I found that the water in the gut not only 

 moistened the bladder where it touched it, but ran down in 2 channels by the 

 side of the bladder; so that in the space of l6 hours all the moisture in the 

 gut was run out without the least air, nay the gut seemed as stiff as when it was 

 first blown. Let us now compare the guts to the bladder, and the chyle and 

 wind in the guts to the wind and water in the hog's gut, then shall the guts let 

 the moisture pass through them, but not the air. 



Among the aforesaid blood-vessels, and other vessels lying within the guts, I 

 saw a matter seeming at first to consist of globules; afterwards it appeared like 

 little guts within the great ones: at length it proved to be short threads, one end 

 of which was partly covered with the aforesaid vessels, and the other end was 

 fastened to a skin or membrane, probably the same with that called by the ana- 

 tomists the innermost coat of the bowels. This woolly substance I conceive may 

 be of great use; for the threads must be longer and lie closer together, and have 

 little moisture between them, while the gut is empty and crumpled; but when 

 the gut is full and distended with victuals, the threads must be shorter and lie 



