6 
HEMOLYMPH NODES OF THE SHEEP 
dozen to a few dozen nodes at most were found. In the new-born only 
from four to six may be present. From the examination of a large num- 
ber of foetuses the statement that the younger the foetus the fewer the 
nodes that can be recognized as hemolymph nodes, seems justified; for 
it is difficult indeed, as a rule, to successfully identify macroscopically any 
nodes as hemolymph nodes in any region, in foetuses less than three to 
four months old. Nevertheless, a striking fact is the occurrence of a 
greater number of hemolymph nodes in lambs and young sheep. In abat- 
toirs, in which occasionally almost a thousand sheep are slaughtered 
daily, it is quite possible, in spite of customary mechanical osteological 
conversions of mutton into lamb, to determine — not in individual cases, 
of course — whether lambs or sheep are being slaughtered, by a cursory 
inspection of a number of nodes present in the lumbar region alone. 
Moreover, such a differentiation is especially easy when lambs and sheep 
have been put into separate pens before slaughtering, thus avoiding a 
mixing of the individual carcasses. In fact, these differences are suf- 
ficiently marked, so that even the butchers are aware of it and not infre- 
quently comment upon the fact. In one instance, for example, in which 
a lot of six thousand wethers were slaughtered on successive days, two 
of the butchers spoke of the smaller number of nodes found in "Western" 
sheep, adding that in the home or "Eastern" sheep more were to be 
found. Their observations were entirely correct, but their conclusions 
were faulty, for it was incorrect to infer that locality or castration were 
the causative factors in this difference, v Schumacher [27] also men- 
tions the fact that they are more common in young sheep. As reported 
by Weidenreich [37] and Warthin [31], the belief of butchers that sheep 
fresh from pasture have more hemolymph nodes, also found confirma- 
tion ; but this is likely explained by the fact that such animals are usually 
lambs, or largely lambs or young sheep, rather than by the state of nutri- 
tion of the animals ; for such an influence of diet would be as remarkable 
as surprising and unlikely. 
No definite grouping of the hemolymph nodes of the sheep was 
found to exist, although they occur more abundantly in fairly well-defined 
regions. Besides, in the lumbar sub- and para-vertebral regions they 
commonly occur in numbers in the para-rectal fat; more rarely near 
the renal vessels ; and sometimes in a more or less complete series extra- 
pleurally in the intercostal spaces immediately lateral to the vertebral 
column and near the origins of the great vessels, in close proximity to 
the lymph nodes between the cervical and thoracic portions of the thymus, 
and in the region of the head thymus adjacent to the para-thymus glands. 
