LIFE AND WORKS OF NICOLAUS STENO XV 



mentioning, that Steno in the same Treatise also asserted the cerumen 

 to be a glandulous secretion, the glands in question lying between 

 the skin and the cartilage. 



From the observation that the membranes of living animals are 

 always humid, Steno was led to the theory that these membranes owe 

 their humidity to glands; and setting to work to find glands in the 

 nose, he discovered them in great abundance below the mucuous 

 membrane. But besides this infinite number of small glands he dis* 

 covered in the sheep and in the dog a large, separate conglomerate 

 nasal gland, and furthermore remembering how channels had been 

 provided for carrying away the fluid of the eye, Steno looked for a 

 passage into the mouth, and found that the canales naso=palatini, some* 

 times called canales Stenoniani, might serve this end in about the same 

 manner as the anterior and posterior apertures of the cavity of the 

 nose. As to the sweat Steno stated that it too was a glandular secretion. 



After a short interval, during which he occupied himself with other 

 problems, Steno once more returned to the glands. He pointed out, 

 how all the conglobate glands belong to the lymphatic system, looking 

 upon the latter as consisting of conglobate glands and lymphatic ves* 

 sels; but, erroneously, he also made those of the conglomerate glands, 

 which secrete a watery fluid, together with their ducts, belong to this 

 same system. 



As the essential results of his investigations up to this date Steno 

 had established the following facts: 1) that all lymphatic vessels are 

 connected with glands, the place of formation of the lymph being 

 unknown; 2) that some of the lymphatics belonging to theconglome* 

 rate glands, i. e. the excretory ducts of these glands, carry their secretion 

 to the cavities of the body: the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth, 

 the gullet, the throat ex c; 3) that the lymphatic vessels belonging to 

 the conglobate glands, those now called the lymphatics, all carry their 

 contents back to the venous system, either direct or through other 

 conglobate glands; and 4) that all glands are organs to which and 

 from which lymphatic vessels are running. On the strength of his 

 researches, and in continuation of what has already been mentioned, 

 Steno' further stated that not only do all conglomerate glands eva* 

 cuate their fluids into the cavities of the body, but that wherever 

 in the natural state a fluid is found on a surface, it has its origin from 

 such glands. To those fluids he referred the following: 1) the fluid 

 in the pericardium; 2) the sweat; 3) the fluid in the cavities of the 

 brain; 4) the fluid on the surface of the organs of the thoracic and the 

 abdominal cavities; and 5) the fluid by which the fetus is nourished, 

 and which he supposed to be secreted in the placenta from the ma* 

 ternal blood, chiefly because he had succeeded in separating, without 

 bleeding, the fetus from the wall of the uterus of a cat. It was the 



