THE FUNCTION 



would perhaps show that heterogenous fluids are taken up by 

 absorbents running to veins pretty readily, though rejected by 

 the lacteals which run to the thoracic duct. In the horse, the 

 usual contents of both the large and small intestines are mixed 

 with a large quantity of fluid that gradually decreases towards 

 the rectum, and is therefore absorbed as it passes along the 

 canal. Now, Flandrin, having collected the contents of the 

 lacteals, did not find them smell like this intestinal fluid, whereas 

 the venous blood of the small intestines had a taste distinctly 

 herbaceous ; that of the caecum a sharp taste, and a slightly 

 urinous smell ; and that of the colon the same qualities in a more 

 marked degree : the blood of other parts presented nothing ana- 

 logous. Half a pound of assafoetida dissolved in the same quan- 

 tity of honey was given to a horse, which was afterwards fed as 

 usual, and killed in sixteen hours. The smell of assafoetida 

 was perceptible in the veins of the stomach, small intestines, 

 and caecum; but not in the arterial blood, nor in the lymph. <i 

 But similar experiments, with opposite results, have been made by 

 others. John Hunter, after pouring water coloured by indigo into 

 the peritoneum of an animal, saw the lymphatics filled with a blue 

 fluid. In the hands of MM. Magendie, Flandrin, and Dupuy tren, 

 this experiment likewise has failed. Magendie does, however, 

 allow, that, in a woman who died with a collection of pus in the 

 thigh, the surrounding lymphatics were distended with pus to the 

 size of a crow's quill ; a pretty decisive proof that lymphatics 

 absorb, as the lymphatics are not said to have been diseased. The 

 absorbents of fish have no valves except at their termination in 

 the red veins, and may therefore be injected from the principal 

 trunks : the injection passes out of the mouths of the absorbents 

 in numerous streams, and especially on the back, if the skate is 

 employed ; another decisive fact. Peyer, Fallopius, and Kerk- 

 ring saw bile in lymphatics about the liver. Seiler, Walter, and 

 Lippi, have injected absorbents from various excretory ducts. 

 Mr. Kiernan always readily injects them, and sometimes even the 

 thoracic duct, from the hepatic ducts of the liver. Oudmann and 

 Schreger have more lately made many experiments, and proved 

 absorption by the lymphatics, though they have not proved it does 

 not take place also by veins. Down to Boerhaave and Haller 

 the doctrine that the lymphatics absorb was maintained, and it 



i Precis de Physiol. 1. c. t. ii. p. 267. 



