152 PHYSIOLOGY 



Mr. Williams, who pricked his finger with a clean needle, had the 

 glands in his arm-pit swell, and had small rigors ; almost immediately 

 npon receiving the wound, a line of pain ran np the whole arm to the 

 glands. 



The lymphatic glands being only in the Tetracoilia, and the absorbents 

 being much more neat in their construction, having a number of valves, 

 in that class, would show that the fluid absorbed is to be more perfect 

 than in other classes. The lymphatics appear to be entirely influenced 

 by the living principle 1 , not by the sensitive. We know of no power 

 which the will or the mind has over the absorbents. 



The absorption is certainly not begun according to the principle 

 of attraction by capillary tubes. In the first place, it would require 

 rigid tubes for such effect 2 , which we cannot suppose to be the case, as 

 so vast a number of such tubes upon the skin would be liable to a 

 thousand accidents which would render them unfit for their purposes. 

 Secondly, if absorption was left to such a uniform acting principle, 

 there would be no choice : every substance would be absorbed equally, 

 for a capillary tube cannot refuse any fluid. Things that were insalu- 

 tary would be as readily absorbed as things that are salutary, which we 

 find not to be the case ; for we find some things absorbed with difficulty, 

 till a disease is produced similar to the kind of substance to be absorbed, 

 such as the venereal matter ; for it is seldom absorbed excepting from 

 a venereal sore. 



It is more in concord with the general principles of the animal 

 machine, to suppose that none of its effects are produced from any 

 mechanical principle whatever ; and that every effect is produced from 

 an- action in the part ; which action is produced by a stimulus upon the 

 part which acts, or upon some other part with which this part sympa- 

 thizes, so as to take up the whole action. 



Major Hughes bad a fistula in ano, for which he had been cut ; but 

 it never entirely healed from the bottom ; however, it sometimes healed 

 at the mouth, which produced an accumulation of matter at the bottom, 

 which produced inflammation, ulceration, &c. ; but what was most 

 remarkable, was a swelling of some of the glands of the groin of the 

 same side. 



[Vide my own case, viz.] I had the point of a pair of scissors run 

 in for a little way into my hip, just behind the great trochanter, and a 

 gland of the groin became sore the next day, viz. when the inflamma- 



1 [The term is here used in the sense of the ' Automatic life ' of Bichat, which is 

 a compound of ' Organic Sensibility and Contractility.'] 



2 [This structure is not required for that passage of fluids through animal mem- 

 branes termed 'endosmose' and 'exosmose.' or imbibition.] 



