[ 3 28 ] 
order to be carried back to the blood, after it has 
performed its office in the bowels. Let it alfo be 
remembered, that thefe veffels, in other places of the 
body, are generally, when we trace them, loft in 
mufcular, tendinous, or membranous parts : and 
then, I fhould prefume, it may fairly, and with a 
good degree of evidence, be concluded, that the 
lymphatics of the body, in general, have their origin 
among the little cavities of the cellular fubftance of 
the mufcles, among the mucous folliculi of the ten- 
dons, or the membranous receptacles and dudts of 
the larger glands : that their extremities or roots do, 
from thefe cavities, imbibe the moifture exhaled 
there from the ultimate arterial tubes, juft as the 
ladteals (the lymphatics of the mefentery) do on the 
concave furface of the inteftines : and that the minute 
imbibing veffiels, by gradually opening one into an- 
other, form at length a lymphatic trunk, furniffied 
with valves to prevent the return of its fluid, and 
tending uniformly, from the extremities and from 
the vifcera, to -reconvey to the blood that lymph, or 
that fine ftream, with which they are kept in per- 
petual moifture ; a circumftance indifpenfibly necef- 
iary to life and motion : while, at the fame time, 
the continual re-abforption of that moifture by the 
lymphatics is no lefs neceflary, in order to preferve 
the blood properly fluid, and to prevent the putrefac- 
tion, which would inevitably follow, if this animal 
vapour were fuffered to ftagnate in the cavities where 
ft is difcharged. 
XLI. 
