26 



THE LACTEALS 



emptied themselves into the liver. The discovery 

 of their connection with the receptaculum chyli 

 and the thoracic duct was made by Jehan Pecquet 

 of Dieppe, Madame de Sevigne s doctor, her " good 

 little Pecquet." The full title of his book (2nd ed., 

 1654) is, Experimenta Nova Anatomica, quihis 

 incognitum hactenus Receptaculum, et ab eo per 

 Thoracem in ramos usque subclavios Vasa Lac tea 

 deteguntur. He has not the academical learning 

 of Asellius, nor his obsequious regard for the 

 ancients ; and the discovery of the thoracic duct 

 came, as it were by chance, out of an experiment 

 that was of itself wholly useless. He had killed an 

 animal by removing its heart, and then saw a small 

 quantity of milky fluid coming from the cut end of 

 the vena cava — Albicantem subinde Lactei liquoris, 

 nec certe parum fluidi scatter iginem, intra Vence Cavce 

 fistulam, circa dextri sedem Ventriculi, miror effluere 

 — and found that this fluid was identical with the 

 chyle in the lacteals. In another experiment, he 

 succeeded in finding the thoracic duct — " At last, 

 by careful examination deep down along the sides 

 of the dorsal vertebrae, a sort of whiteness, as of a 

 lacteal vessel, catches my eyes. It lay in a sinuous 

 course, close up against the spine. I was in doubt, 

 for all my scrutiny, whether I had to do with a nerve 

 or with a vessel. Therefore, I put a ligature a little 

 below the clavicular veins ; and then the flaccidity 

 above the ligature, and the swelling of the distended 

 duct below the ligature, broke down my doubt — 

 Ergo subdue to paulo infra Claviculas vinculo, cum, 

 a ligaturd sursum flaccesceret, super stite deorsum 



