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soon become affected with cancer. If the nature of the work did Hot 

 circumscribe me, within certain limits, I should point out several other 

 particulars relative to the history of cancer, and among other cases, in 

 my own practice, I should relate that of a woman, in whom I removed a 

 cancerous tumour situated on the left side of the chest: this case is re- 

 markable from the number of operations which her disease required, and 

 for which M. Pelletan removed, six years ago, the left breast, and, three 

 years ago, a gland under the axilla of the same side. 



The difference in the termination of glandular swellings and those 

 arising from cancer scrophula, or syphilis, makes it probable, that there 

 exist ferments, or specific poisons, which dispute the accumulated mat- 

 ter to undergo peculiar changes. 



The venereal virus, absorbed by the lymphatics of the organs of gene- 

 ration, remains, for some time, in the glands of the groin, before it ex- 

 tends beyond, as is proved by the cure of the venereal disease, by extir- 

 pating the diseased glands. In short, the impediment which the lymph 

 meets with, in passing through the glands, shows why these parts are so 

 frequently the seat of critical abcesses, by which we judge of the nature 

 of several fevers of a malignant kind. In the plague of eastern countries, 

 the virus that attends this dreadful malady, is disseminated throughout 

 the body, collects in the glands, is transmitted through them with diffi- 

 culty, brings on an irritation and gangrenous inflammation, terminating 

 in pestilential buboes. 



XLVII. The thoracic duct may be considered as the centre in which 

 the whole lymphatic system terminates; it arises at the upper part of 

 the abdomen, from the union of the chylous vessels with the lymphatics 

 coming from the inferior extremities. At the part where all these vessels 

 meet, there is a dilatation, a sort of ampullula, called lumbar cistern, re- 

 ceptaculum chyli, or of Pecquet, which, in truth, is not always found, and 

 the size of which is very variable. The thoracic duct enters the chest 

 through the opening in the diaphragm which transmits the aorta; it then 

 ascends along the spine, on the right side of the aorta, within the poste- 

 rior mediastinum. At the upper part of the chest, opposite to the seventh 

 cervical vertebra, it inclines from the right to the left side, passes behind 

 the oesophagus and the trachea, and o,:>ens into the subclavian vein of the 

 left side, at the back part of the insertion of the internal jugular into that 

 vein. While the thoracic duct is ascending along the spine, it receives 

 the lymphatics of the parietes of the chest; those of the lungs enter it as 

 it passes behind the root of these organs. In its course from the right 

 towards the left side, it receives the absorbents of the right upper ex- 

 tremity, and those of the right side of the head and neck. Lastly, it 

 unites with those vessels which are coming from the left side of the head 

 and neck, as well as from the left upper extremity, just before opening 

 into the subclavian vein. The thoracic duct sometimes has its insertion 

 in the jugular vein of the same side, and not unfrequently the lymphatics 

 of the right side of the chest, neck, and head, and of the right upper ex- 

 tremity, unite to form a second duct, which opens separately into the 

 right subclavian vein.* Whatever be the vein into which the duct opens, 



* In some rare cases, lymphatic vessels, in other parts of the body, are seen to open 

 into neighbouring veins. This enables one to account for the presence of the chyle 

 which is said to have been found in the meseraic veins, into which it had been poured 

 by some lacteal. Mascagni was aware of this anatomical fact. The lymphatic system 



