486 THE SOLIDS. 



aggregated, especially along the larger blood canals. These 

 groups are made up of corpuscles of very various size ; they 

 do not appear to have any special connexion with the sur- 

 rounding substance, which occasionally, however, has a de- 

 cided yellow tinge. 



" In the animal series, I have found these corpuscles most 

 highly developed in fishes. In the human subject they are 

 rarely to be found. I have, however, observed them distinctly 

 in six instances, in one of which they were very large and 

 numerous. In most of the cases in which they were found 

 there had been considerable interruption to the respiratory 

 process. The spleen was generally much enlarged, soft, and 

 of rather a pale colour, quite an opposite condition to that 

 often observed in cases of ' Bright's disease,' where the 

 organ is found small and contracted : in such spleens I have 

 never found any of the yellow corpuscles." 



For a description of the Pineal and Pituitary glands, 

 placed in the classification under the heading " Vascular 

 Glands," the reader is referred to the Appendix. 



ABSORBENT GLANDS. 



The absorbent system of vessels is divisible into lacteals 

 and lymphatics, the glands attached to the former being 

 called mesenteric, and those to the latter, lymphatic glands. 



The lacteal absorbents commence in a plexiform manner in 

 the villi of the small intestines, while the lymphatic absorbents 

 originate all over the body, in the same manner, in each of the 

 several tissues and organs of which it is composed : they are 

 minute, delicate, and transparent vessels, remarkable for their 

 uniformity of size, a knotted appearance due to the presence 

 of numerous valves, the dichotomous divisions which occur 

 in their course, and their separation into several branches im- 

 mediately before entering a gland.* 



* See the Article " Lymphatic System," by Mr. Lane, in the Cyclo- 

 paedia of Anatomy and Physiology. 



