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LECTURE V. 



ON THE ABSORBING VESSELS. 



Next to the organs which digest the food, 

 there are displayed in the Museum those 

 vessels which imbibe it from the bowels, 

 and convey it, in the higher classes of 

 animals, into the sanguiferous system. 



Mr. Hunter, havmg convinced himself 

 by observations and experiments which are 

 published, that these vessels are the only 

 ones which perform the function of ab- 

 sorption, attributed the removal of every 

 thing in the interior of the body to these 

 minute, highly susceptible, but undiscerni- 

 ble agents. Believing that secretion or 

 deposition was a process very generally 

 going on throughout the body, he used to 

 call the absorbents, the modelling vessels, 

 from perceiving that if secretion exceeded 

 absorption in any part, increase of bulk 

 and deformity would ensue. He was led 



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